Guild Wars 2

Hey, so i’m a lvl 80 guardian, and i’ve wanted to craft some Ascended armour, but seen that leveling Armorsmithing from 0-500 costs alot of gold..and i’m interested, is it worth it?

It is if you want ascended gear. Also, each legendary requires Gifts that are made by specific professions (level 400 gifts). If you don’t plan to make either of those, it’s not too worth it.

Get your ascended weapons first (they provide a bigger bang for your buck than the armor sets in terms of cost to benefit ratio).

Also, note that ascended equipment is not necessary unless you are doing high end Fractals.

This means that it is going to cost you a lot of money for what amounts to some new skins and a minor stat bump. If you don’t care about the skins or min-maxing for fractals, then “worth it” it isn’t. I’m working on ascended gear now simply because I don’t have much else to work on (my characters are all geared).

Ascendeds provides a pretty nice boost in stats if you have a full set. If you can only afford 1 piece and have other stuff to spend your gold on then it can be a little less practical. I would say definitely level your crafting up if you are looking for any sort of end-game progression (as that’s what ascended armor and weapons essentially provides). If you are a material hoarder like I am, you can also craft the ascended materials and just sell them on the TP if you have no interest in the equipment.

If you want to do high-level fractals at some point you will pretty much be forced to craft ascended equipment as well.

Guardian is my primary character and I have him in all ascended armor/trinkets and I found it worth it. It takes time but it gives you something to work for. You’ll want to get both armorsmithing and weaponsmithing to 500.

As mtpelion stated, Ascended weapons provide more stat gain over Exotic than Ascended armor. Armor requires similar amounts of raw mats to produce the actual piece. An armor set is six pieces. Weapons, well if you go main hand + off-hand in both weapon sets and get both UW weapons, you’ll craft 6 weapons (and for Guardian could be leveling two crafts, as trident, focus and staff require artificer while swords, etc. require Weaponsmith). If you go MH/OH in one set, two-handed in the other and skip UW, you’d be crafting 3.

Weapon crafting is more cost effective. Also, trinkets provide the most stat gain, fwiw. Beyond that, only you can answer whether armor crafting is worth it. However, if your answer to the question, “Do I really want the best stats available?” is, “Yes.” then it would be.

Personally? No. Other than getting a daily for crafting done, or for crafting achievements, no the professions haven’t meant more than the difference between 1-5 points per armor or weapon. If you’re a min/maxer that may mean a lot to you. Otherwise, if you’re a casual, it don’t mean squat.

In fact, you can craft ascended gear through the Mystic Forge without crafting knowledge. Farming, coin purchases off the Trading Post, and laurels will do.

Here’s an example: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sclerite_Karka_Shell_

This isn’t true for armor and weapons . . . for now.

But, in the next patch, you’ll be able to choose an ascended piece of armor if you complete the last part of the Silverwastes achievement that includes the last two pieces.

Edit: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bioluminescence (please note the reward)

To me, this opens a gateway to gain ascended armor and the like without crafting. So, I recommend you save your money and go the farming route instead.

But, as always, that’s just my humble opinion.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Personally? No. Other than getting a daily for crafting done, or for crafting achievements, no the professions haven’t meant more than the difference between 1-5 points per armor or weapon. If you’re a min/maxer that may mean a lot to you. Otherwise, if you’re a casual, it don’t mean squat.

In fact, you can craft ascended gear through the Mystic Forge without crafting knowledge. Farming, coin purchases off the Trading Post, and laurels will do.

Here’s an example: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sclerite_Karka_Shell_

This isn’t true for armor and weapons . . . for now.

But, in the next patch, you’ll be able to choose an ascended piece of armor if you complete the last part of the Silverwastes achievement that includes the last two pieces.

To me, this opens a gateway to gain ascended armor and the like without crafting. So, I recommend you save your money and go the farming route instead.

But, as always, that’s just my humble opinion.

If he wants to do high level fractals he will need to craft ascended armor or weapons. Casual or not. Outside of that I pretty much agree with what you said.

Maybe true you’ll need ’m for High level fractals (40 and up,) but for lower end fractals you should be fine with Ascended trinkets, amulet and Infused rings and a back. (40 AR total), if you use an utility infusion on your amulet, you should infuse your backitem ( to stay at 40 AR) Then it should be enough to lvl 39.
Above 39 It will scale very steeply, to 70 AR for level 50.

Thanks for the answers!

To make a long story short, the stats boost isn’t big and in most cases it won’t be too important. Ascended is wanted for high-level fractals, if you don’t enjoy doing that, then most people will probably tell you don’t them.

It is cool to have ascended and it does give you a slight stats boost, however the boost isn’t that significant and will most only matter in WvW in which case you would need to be a really good player to use these extra few stats in the first place.

Speculation:

They’re working on making sure Ascended becomes integral in crafting a Legendary, rather than an obstacle to it (as in wasted gold and mats for same stats without stat-picking). Eventually, we’ll be able to infuse our Ascended armor → use as precursors for crafting Legendary Armor, with the added benefit of allowing us to progress further into Fractals. Same goes for Legendary trinkets/back.

They delayed precursor crafting because, even if they wanted to allow us to use Ascended weapons in the same manner, it wouldn’t make sense, would crash the economy and would ensure non-stop QQ on forums. So therefore, everything regarding this, i.e. Fractal progression, new legendaries, new legendary pieces, precursor crafting, jeweller 500, is put on hold until they can figure out a comprehensible solution to roll it out according to a deadline, so we won’t have to wait for 2 years again for them to patch things up.

Also salvaging of Ascended pieces (rings anyone?) for +1 Agony infusions and/or Globs of Dark Matter.

/End of dreaming.