Guild Wars 2

My biggest thing I have against laurels is that the only way of obtaining them is by logging on everyday. But I don’t understand what guild wars expects us to do while waiting to get ascended gear.. we can’t do challenging fractals, we can’t do raids it’s like there’s no end game that a person can do. So do u expect us to just login for 5 minutes at reset getting our laurels then logging off the game? Maybe if you added laurel rewards to dungeons ppl would actually start doing them. Could I get an a net dev to let me know what I’m supposed to be doing without ascended gear at lvl 80?

I want to play the game, but I truly want to hear from someone telling me what I can be doing

Laurels were initially designed to be time gated, so I don’t think ArenaNet are going to change that. There are other ways of earning ascended gear, even trinkets. One example is what I did and I completed all the dungeon collection achievements.

Bloodstone fen has ascended trinkets and backpiece and you can buy ascended trinkets with guild commendations. Some achievements give you ascended trinkets. Those should get you started on the ascended gear needed for doing fractals.

I lost an entire month worth of progress because of laurels. I bought two ascended items with the same name because I didn´t know that you can´t equip the same ascended item twice. Cost me 40 laurels. Contacted support to undo this mistake, but haven´t gotten an answer in days.

Stuff like this is one of the reasons why I´m taking a long break from GW2 again to play the other MMO that just released an expansion.

Luckily OfficialMEight answered my question on what to do. (Twitch streamer.) Daily fractal completion gives you chests that could possibly include ascended gear. That’s enough to motivate me to jump on gw2 every day for at least a little bit.

ChrizZcE.5981:

I lost an entire month worth of progress because of laurels. I bought two ascended items with the same name because I didn´t know that you can´t equip the same ascended item twice. Cost me 40 laurels. Contacted support to undo this mistake, but haven´t gotten an answer in days.

Stuff like this is one of the reasons why I´m taking a long break from GW2 again to play the other MMO that just released an expansion.

If you haven’t received an answer after 3 days post here https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/support/GW2-Tickets-for-Review-3-days-older-2

Also check your spam folder since replies from Support often go in their automatically.

BoB.6082:

Luckily OfficialMEight answered my question on what to do. (Twitch streamer.) Daily fractal completion gives you chests that could possibly include ascended gear. That’s enough to motivate me to jump on gw2 every day for at least a little bit.

Other ways include;
- Crafting
- Tequatl (probably one of the better chances tbh and you can use the forge to change the stats)
- Triple Headed Wurm
- Achievements/Collections.
- WvW rank up chests
- Fractal tokens for jewellery
- One of the Guild Hall Initiative NPCs in LA

A very easy way to getting some ascended trinkets is Bloodstone Fen. You can purchase ring, amulet and backpiece there for the map currency. It takes a while to farm but it’s super easy.

Be careful as rings are unique, even the Bloodstone Fen ones for some reason. So you can only wear one of each name. However, you can bypass this by having 2 rings of the same name and infusing/attuning one of them in the Mystic Forge; that way you can use both of them.

Another way to get rings (only) is through fractals. Aside from the rare drops from the daily chests, you can buy 1 ascended ring of your choosing for just 10 pristine fractal relics. You get 1 (or more, not sure) pristine fractal relic from each daily fractal chest, so in a few days you should have more than enough for 2 rings. Again, same thing as above, if you buy the same ring twice you need to either infuse or attune one of them.

But if you buy from fractals you can simply buy 2 different rings with the same stats, there are always 2 different rings with the same stats (for example: berserker rings are Ring of Red Death and Crystalline Band). Or you can buy one from fractals and one from Bloodstone Fen, the choice is yours. My recommendation would be to only buy the backpiece and maybe amulet from Bloodstone Fen – the amulet you really should buy with laurels, it’s only 20 laurels if you buy from WvW laurel vendor, who has all laurel prices discounted but you need to also spend a little WvW currency.

Ascended accesories (earrings) are best bought with guild commendations, which you get from doing guild missions. See wiki for details.

All the best!

you can also go to bloodstone fen and work on your ascended backpiece. do pvp for again your ascended backpiece with a chance of ascended drops of all kinds. you can also earn some gold in ab and sw since you want to be doing crafting youll need it. you could also work on your masteries or world completion since i doubt youve finished either atm. you could also do lower tier fractals for gold and ascended drops. level a new character fight world bosses or go play in wvw.

Ascended trinkets are easy to obtain, and are enough to get into T2 fractals, which do have ascended drops (even though it is a low rate). There is nothing stopping you from crafting your own ascended weapons/armor, and you can always run guild missions for guild commendations which can be used to buy ascended trinkets.

Running the daily fractals also gives you pristine fractal relics which can be used to buy ascended trinkets. There are loads of ways to get ascended, laurels just happens to be the easiest since it doesn’t require playing the game

OriOri.8724:

Ascended trinkets are easy to obtain, and are enough to get into T2 fractals, which do have ascended drops (even though it is a low rate). There is nothing stopping you from crafting your own ascended weapons/armor, and you can always run guild missions for guild commendations which can be used to buy ascended trinkets.

Running the daily fractals also gives you pristine fractal relics which can be used to buy ascended trinkets. There are loads of ways to get ascended, laurels just happens to be the easiest since it doesn’t require playing the game

to be fair you need laurels to craft your own ascended gear. recipes cost 5 per or guild commendations if your cool with waiting for rng.

As others mentioned there are plenty of ways to get ascended items, so i wont be going into that, what im curious about is why you would be in such a rush with endgame content if you are just starting.
There is so, so much to do in the game and for very most of it exotic works just fine. Weither it is pvp, any open world content, dungeons or low tier fractals.
You don’t really need ascended gears much before you start working your way up in the fractals, want to raid or wvw.
What im trying to say is – the game is absolutly playable while waiting for the laurels to stack up. Do jumping puzzles, explore Tyria, fight world bosses (i still remember the very first time i saw shadow behemoth spawn – looked amazing) Join a guild and just enjoy yourself. It is an amazing game and you’ll have your ascended gears in no time at all.

sophiewhite.3149:

to be fair you need laurels to craft your own ascended gear. recipes cost 5 per or guild commendations if your cool with waiting for rng.

… or use any recipe, then stat switch it using the mystic forge.

Healix.5819:

sophiewhite.3149:

to be fair you need laurels to craft your own ascended gear. recipes cost 5 per or guild commendations if your cool with waiting for rng.

… or use any recipe, then stat switch it using the mystic forge.

I’ve purchased one recipe for each weapon with commendations (one that has cheap-to-craft stats) and just use that whenever I don’t know the recipe for the stats I do want.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Healix.5819:

sophiewhite.3149:

to be fair you need laurels to craft your own ascended gear. recipes cost 5 per or guild commendations if your cool with waiting for rng.

… or use any recipe, then stat switch it using the mystic forge.

I’ve purchased one recipe for each weapon with commendations (one that has cheap-to-craft stats) and just use that whenever I don’t know the recipe for the stats I do want.

Exactly. You don’t need that many laurels to buy all of the recipes that you need to craft a full set of ascended gear of any stats. And quite frankly unless OP does nothing but farm mats he will likely get the laurels to buy the recipes before he will have all the materials anyway

ChrizZcE.5981:

I lost an entire month worth of progress because of laurels. I bought two ascended items with the same name because I didn´t know that you can´t equip the same ascended item twice. Cost me 40 laurels. Contacted support to undo this mistake, but haven´t gotten an answer in days.

Stuff like this is one of the reasons why I´m taking a long break from GW2 again to play the other MMO that just released an expansion.

2 of the same ring can be worn if one of them is attuned or infused. Hope that helps someone.

you can totally raid in exotics. you can totally do fractals (up to i think end of tier 1) in exotics. there are plenty of ways to get ascended gear aside from crafting

Why do things just for the reward? I know a lot of people have fallen into this trap, but I really believe we all need to seriously ask ourselves that question. There’s almost the entire game’s content you can enjoy without ascended equipment. I guess if you only want to play one particular part of the game, then yes you might have some problems. Just don’t try to limit yourself.

IIRC, Laurels were added to allow non-fractal playing players to acquire ascended trinkets/accessories. And before the current method it was completing the daily and monthly achievements. Now it’s simply logging in for a few moments everyday.

Behellagh.1468:

IIRC, Laurels were added to allow non-fractal playing players to acquire ascended trinkets/accessories. And before the current method it was completing the daily and monthly achievements. Now it’s simply logging in for a few moments everyday.

Here’s the News Blog that talks about this, as well as the Patch Notes^:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/colin-johanson-on-guild-wars-2-in-the-months-ahead/

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_updates/2013-01-28#Daily.2FMonthly_Achievements

Doesn’t need to be changed, there are many options. Lets go through each ascended item provided by laurels.

Rings

For rings, they’re significantly easier to get than they once were bar the new Heart of thorns set.

Each fractal daily is rewarding 1 pristine relic per box you open. T4 runners are getting 14 a day which is more than we can spend. You only need 10 per ring, so even if you do T2s and the daily rec you’ll have both in 3 days.

You can also go through the new Bloodstone fen map if you want heart of thorns stats.

Amulets

There’s little to no reason you’ll need them unless you’re a min/maxer or want a small drop/karma/exp. They no longer have an AR slot so your fractal pug wont care. No raid is going to reject you over 1 item socket being exotic.

Accessories

If you’re running condi, you can use the sinister set from living story season 2. I personally know the viper horror necro build uses them with their thorn rune set. If power build set there are assassins accessories only available through dungeon collections. If you want berserker stats I’ve got nothing. However, exotics aren’t far off. Also you can run the fractal potion for 15 AR with the mastery which is around how much you’re missing by not having the accessories.

Briars.1425:

you can totally raid in exotics. you can totally do fractals (up to i think end of tier 1) in exotics. there are plenty of ways to get ascended gear aside from crafting

thats cute. now go try it irl and watch it never happen. no one will take you. no one.

Time gating is one of the core problems I have with this game. Laurels aren’t the only example, there are many in GW2.

I like to play more when I have the best/coolest gear. Preventing me from getting the best gear makes me want to play less. To me, time gating is backwards.

sophiewhite.3149:

Briars.1425:

you can totally raid in exotics. you can totally do fractals (up to i think end of tier 1) in exotics. there are plenty of ways to get ascended gear aside from crafting

thats cute. now go try it irl and watch it never happen. no one will take you. no one.

No, that’s fairly accurate. There are plenty of raiders that go in exotics, the -10% damage/armor is hardly noticed as long as players don’t drop. The biggest drop in damage is from having to pick someone up usually. qT has shown how forgiving the raids can be with their 5 man gorseval. I’m not saying the OP should be able to play out of his mind, but 10 man raid squad in exotics is definitely doable and there are many guilds and teaching squads out there for them.

As for fractals, you definitely can do the first tier in exotic. The fractal potion with the mastery gives 15 AR. Mai Trin 25 only requires 17 for maximum coverage. A few exotic back pieces even have infusion slots in them.

sophiewhite.3149:

Briars.1425:

you can totally raid in exotics. you can totally do fractals (up to i think end of tier 1) in exotics. there are plenty of ways to get ascended gear aside from crafting

thats cute. now go try it irl and watch it never happen. no one will take you. no one.

I’ve pugged Fractals and no one has ever asked me about my gear, not once. Of course I always inform the people I’m with that I’m new to Fractals and offer to step out if anyone has a problem with that, usually it’s not a problem. My experience may be much different then yours but the Fractal players I’ve run across seem to be pretty easy to deal with.