Guild Wars 2

We just crossed 3000 achievment points recently. My 12 year old son has a 80 Warrior and is leveling a Necro now, and I have 4 level 80 characters myself (Ranger, Guardian, Necro, Engineer). We enjoyed the new Living World/Dry Top stuff for a while (although we miss the old Lion’s Arch). Most of my nights now are spent in Orr or Southsun, following the “Commanders” around the map to get more stuff that I can either salvage or sell on the AH. I may occasionally level my Mesmer and Elementalist also. I think, after getting exotic weapons and armor for my Ranger recently, we have 25 gold left. I don’t do Dungeons, Fractals, PVP or WVW. I found myself dying too often in Dungeons and Fractals. I MIGHT want to try WVW at some point, more for exploration than for any other reason.

Having said all of that, I’d like to get more Exotic gear for my other level 80 characters, and there IS a way that I could get enough gold to do it. We have been sending all of our materials to the bank over the year or so we have had the game, and I see we have several “stacks” in our bank that would sell on the AH for several gold. My only hesitation is that there is “Ascended” gear out there, tempting me (or at least a weapon or two). But I have no idea if I’m even close to having enough materials to craft one. I know that on most characters I have not leveled crafting AT ALL. It just doesn’t interest me.

Sorry for the long explanation, but I thought it would help you advise me if you knew more about our playstyle. Do you think that after playing for 14 months or so, having 3000 achievment points, etc, that we have anywhere close to enough “stuff” for even ONE Ascended weapon? I’m thinking the answer is probably “No”, which makes me think we are better off right now selling what we have in the bank and putting all our level 80 guys in Exotic gear. What would be your advice? Thanks for any constructive feedback you can offer.

You can equip a multitude of characters in exotic gear for the same price as putting a single one in ascended gear. If you enjoy playing your alts, I wouldn’t start thinking about ascended gear until they’re all decked out in good exotics. Having said that, if you go the route of crafting to equip your alts, that’s a good way of taking steps toward ascended gear at the same time.

The cost of crafting a single Ascended weapon is manageable, and your playstyle could accommodate that over time.

HOWEVER, the cost of raising even a crafting discipline (Weaponsmith, Huntsman or Artificer) to 500 is quite steep. I have strong reservations about whether this would be a worthwhile investment for you, as it requires making multiple discoveries of exotic recipes. In other words, expect to spend large amounts of Orichalcum, Ancient Wood and the highest tier Fine Materials (Powerful Blood, Armored Scales, Piles of Crystalline Dust, etc.), as well as Ectoplasm.

I cannot tell you whether this investment will be worth it for your playstyle, especially if you have little to no interest in crafting. I can only advise you to read up on the subject and make up your own mind.

You don’t have enough mats. It takes quite a lot just to get to lvl 500 crafting, and then ascended gear itself takes even more. With only 25g, you also can’t afford to buy them.

If you like playing on different alts as the mood takes you, I’d definitely not advise trying to get even one ascended weapon. It’ll take a large amount of effort/money, and then you’ll feel obliged to play whatever toon it’s on (Ascended weapons do stay account bound, but even if you swap it around, it can’t be used by every class).

Before buying Exotic armour on the trading post, do check how much Karma you have. You can buy exotic armour for 42,000 karma per piece at each temple in Orr (each temple has different stat combinations).

I have levelled and equipped 17 characters so far (I rotate out toons I am no longer interested in, so I have deleted 7 fully geared in exotics toons). All of them are in full exotics and I have a few of them in ascended trinkets and I have 1 ascended bow from a drop. Currently I have a stable of 10 level 80s in exotics with some ascended trinkets.

You don’t have to have ascended gear. Since I do not have a real “main” it seems a huge waste of time to work on ascended armor or weapons. I also loath crafting, the money it takes to skill it up, and the time.

I prefer to play the game with the best gear I can have under my circumstances and enjoy my time playing it. Some people enjoy having every ounce they can drag out of power on their one main character, which is fine. I don’t know of many who have a stable of toons in full ascended.

Going for Ascended items is a big commitment. Keep in mind there are things you CAN do to improve your overall equipment prior to making that decision:

Exotic armor and weapons are available from various sources if you don’t want to craft. Keep in mind that sans Dungeon armor, none of the exotic items obtained outside of crafting, drops or BLTP purchase are currently salvageable. You cannot get upgrades off them to use elsewhere.

Ascended trinkets (jewelry) are available via other methods:

• Amulets are Laurel purchases from Laurel vendor (note that with 250 WvW badges you can get a discount on these from the WvW laurel vendors). It takes less than an hour and half in EotM (following a decent commander) to get 250 badges.
• Rings are obtainable via Fractals of the Mist but do require some small bit of grinding the low level ones. If FotM is not your thing, you can also buy these at the Laurel vendors (even the WvW discount one) for more Laurels than the Amulets.
• Accessories (Earrings) can be purchased from Laurel vendors but also require 50 Ectos…..(ouch). It is easier to work with a Guild to earn Guild Commendations (you need 12 of them for one Accessory) on a weekly basis for these. I THINK you can earn these by being guested to a guild during the guild events they do.

I personally have 10 charcters and about half of them are fully decked in Exotic armor and some Ascended trinkets (from methods above). I have my Weaponsmith and Huntsman up to 500 and am working to generate Ascended weapons for them (and still working on Artificer to 500 crafting).

I have no plans current plans to build Ascended armor (mostly due to the stat advantage it gives not being on par with the cost for 6 Ascended pieces), but a few of my armor crafting IS nearing 500 just from refinement and crafting of needed Exotics to outfit my characters. I do NOT intend to invest money to get those to 500 for the moment (it DOES cost a good bit of gold to get your crafting to 500).

Some crafting professions are cheaper to level than others, also. I just went from 0-500 leatherworking for ~110 gold. Then I spent ~130 just to get artificing from 420-500. So depending on what armor you need to craft for, it may be cheaper to level the crafting for it. It will almost certainly be cheaper to just buy armor for your necro, and possibly your guardian (although I haven’t done any armorsmithing). The ranger and engineer, it may be cheaper depending on what stats you need. I’ve noticed that the cost of buying materials, and the cost of buying gear is often not too far apart.

The armor isn’t worth it imo. Costs a ton to make and the stat gain is tiny. The weapons are better but I read a post where someone said that downleveled ascended do the same damage as exotics. If that is true, then their utility is very low as most gameplay for many is below level 80.

If you don’t have much gold and you don’t want to do them, just to have a goal, then I don’t recommend them.

Thanks for those great suggestions guys. I had forgotten all about our Laurels, and I think we have around 200 now, so that might be an option for Accessories that I had not thought about.

I’m at about 80% World Completion on my Ranger now, and another goal is to get her to 100%. This would require some WVW time I think. Can you guys recommend me to some good links about what exactly I should be doing to get WVW exploration? I’m generally not interested in fighting other players, but it (sadly) seems this is needed for this achievment Like I said, if I am going to try WVW, I’d like to do my research first. I am on Tarnished Coast, if that makes a difference. Thanks again for all your help.

For World vs. World, if you’re canny you can get the exploration done with only minimal fighting. Each week (with a reset on Friday night, NA time), your server is assigned to a colour for World vs. World. Tarnished Coast, right now, is red. The colour you’re assigned determines what sections of the World vs. World maps your server will be defending. In reasonably even matchups, as your server has now, it should usually control most of the ‘red’ territory. So take advantage of that time to go to the Eternal Battlegrounds and the three Borderlands to find all the Points of Interest, Vistas and Skill Points that fall within ‘red’ territory. You might run into enemy players occasionally, and you might get killed, but waypointing is free in WvW, and armour repairs are also free, so all dying is is an inconvenience. If TC has pushed into another server’s territory to take their stuff (they might have, they’re winning this week), feel free to map that too.

In the next week’s matchup, that colour allotment might change. Maybe TC will be blue or green. In that case, take advantage of the chance to go map out the blue and green sections of the maps while they’re (mostly) under your control. If TC winds up being red again, don’t be too fussed about it, just make sure you’ve mapped out all the normally-red areas and wait for the colour to change.

That’s the best way to map out World vs. World for people who don’t want to take part in the actual fighting. It assumes generally even matchups, which you have. Mapping is a lot harder on weaker servers that are outmatched and usually can’t even hold onto their own territory. And, well, it’s a lot easier when your server gets a dominant matchup and can hold the territory of other servers at will. Since you have an even matchup and it’s likely to remain that way for the foreseeable future (barring Tournament two on ones), all you need to complete your mapping is patience.

Of course, you might want to try actually participating in the fighting too. Run around, follow the commander, defend supply camps, kill dudes. It might be fun! Fighting against AIs is one thing, but it’s another to pit your knowledge and skills against other players.

fourhim.3584:

Thanks for those great suggestions guys. I had forgotten all about our Laurels, and I think we have around 200 now, so that might be an option for Accessories that I had not thought about.

I’m at about 80% World Completion on my Ranger now, and another goal is to get her to 100%. This would require some WVW time I think. Can you guys recommend me to some good links about what exactly I should be doing to get WVW exploration? I’m generally not interested in fighting other players, but it (sadly) seems this is needed for this achievment Like I said, if I am going to try WVW, I’d like to do my research first. I am on Tarnished Coast, if that makes a difference. Thanks again for all your help.

The best time to do WvW exploration is during the upcoming WvW tournament. During at least one of the weeks in the tournament TC will be matched up with a much weaker opponent and TC will own most of the WvW map.

For general exploration just go to each borderland and EB and run around and collect all your “home” points. These will be the 3 camps, and 2 towers nearest where you spawn. They vary depending on what color your team is that week. When you are there you can see what other points you own at the time and collect those as well.

Additionally check each week to see if your teams color has changed. Different color means different starting point and different “home” points that will be much easier to get that week.

A few extra tips:
1. When you are in ANY wvw map you can zoom out and see all the other WvW maps as well. Try to remember which points you are missing and quickly scan over and see if you currently own them.
2. Reset night is Friday near daily reset. The night before (thursday) the matches are pretty much decided and people focus more on attacking instead of defending. This means if you join your servers zerg (where the commander is) you are likely to capture many different objectives that you might be missing.
3. Change your traits for WvW exploration. You basically want anything that speeds you up and gives you defense. The faster you can move around the map the less likely you will be killed and the less time it will take.

fourhim.3584:

I found myself dying too often in Dungeons and Fractals.

It depends on what’s killing you. If it’s higher level fractals and you’re dying from Agony, then you might want more Ascended to put Agony Resist Infusions into. If you’re dying in dungeons/fractals because of “regular” attacks, then Ascended crafting will do almost nothing for you. The fix for that is learning mob tells and what actions you can take to mitigate the damage (e.g., block, dodge, etc.).

The overall stat increase for Ascended gear is heavily weighted in accessories. Weapons are a distant second, and armor brings up the rear. However, weapon and armor crafting are quite expensive in terms of time or gold (or both). I can only recommend Ascended crafting for completionist players, got-to-have-best-in-slot players or those pursuing max level fractals.

Another nice thing about WvW is that you can buy exotic armor and weapons from vendors in the WvW zones, for a combination of Badges of Honor and gold (not super-cheap but not as much gold spent as you would at the BLTP). Badges of Honor are earned through completing WvW events, including in the Edge of the Mists “practice” area (you also probably have some Badges of Honor sitting around from opening achievement chests – check your currency tab!)

Weapons aren’t too hard to get, and offer 5% DPS just from the straight weapon strength bonus. I suggest at least getting that. Armor is mostly for completionists.

A couple things:

• Ascended equipment are account bound. You only need one set for a stat combination so long as you don’t mind swapping it between characters.

• Karma is relatively easy and quick to farm in EotM. More so if you’re green. A lot of the widely used armor stat combinations are available from Orr karma vendors. You also make a decent amount of gold and can use badges to see blueprints to make gold for example. I haven’t done a really test on how much karma you can get with buffs but I’d say it’s on par with how long it would take to farm the gold.

Ascended Gear is only worth it IF one or more of the following apply to you

1. You like the look of it

2. You want the fairly small stat boost (somewhat nice for weapon/trinkets/back piece, insignificant for armor)

3. You want to run level 50 fractals (even then, you CAN get all the AR you need with two infused rings, you’ll just need highly upgraded Agony Infusions)

4. You have nothing else to spend gold/laurals on.

If none of those apply to you, avoid them entirely.

Nothing wrong with exotics, in fact 99% of the game content can be ran in only exotic weapons and armors with no problem at all, it is the natural progression to use exotics.

Having said that…. my main I just completed a full set of ascended armor and one ascended great sword, the cost in materials, time, gold is staggering and the ROI probably isn’t worth the effort unless you have the desire for BIS gear and can afford to pay the price.

I started my quest for ascended stuff with 1000g in my bank, I had to raise both my armorsmith and weaponsmith crafting from the mid 400’s to 500 plus create the time gated materials. I was able to sell some of the exotic stuff I crafted while getting to 500 on the TP to offset some of the cost but to be honest it still cost me around 400g and about 700k of karma to craft a full set of armor and one weapon, this does include the runes and sigils, it also took me almost a month to complete the task.

Was it worth it? probably not, I had the gold and karma to burn and just decided that it was a goal I wanted to accomplish, will I do it again? probably will make more ascended weapons for my toons but the armor I doubt I’ll do that unless something new is added that would make it worth the investment.

Not to be rude, but you don’t have the gold to even consider ascended stuff, you might be able to craft a weapon but you’d be broke afterword and the gain over the exotic (5%) could leave you with buyers remorse.

The above suggestions by others of exotics through WvW is a sound plan and if you don’t mind EotM you can acquire the needed badges and karma quickly, as stated the weapons offer great stats and should be all a normal player will ever need.

Of course this is JMHO

The cost of making an ascended weapon from crafting level zero varies with the weapon but is approximately 150-160 gold for lvl 500 in that weapon type profession, and then another 30 for the weapon itself, all costs included.

25 Gold won’t cut it. Stick to exotics.

And while ascended is very slightly better than exotic, the difference is entirely dwarfed by the stats that using food gives you. even cheap level 70 odd food. I have never understood people that invest hundreds of gold in ascendeds, but refuse to spend 2 silver on food per hour. I could earn back the difference by harvesting any random iron node.

Also, search for Skale Venom on the wiki. It’s a copper-priced utility consumable that can be used together with food – the vulnerability increases kill rates and the weakness reduces damage dealt by mobs.

You may find the effects from cheap food and skale venom to already make a noticeable difference in play.

To answer simply, you really don’t need Ascended armor unless you are a big fractal runner to counteract Agony (high tier difficulty). Others might argue that if you are a hardcore WvW player you should be competitive as possible, but again its not a necessity.

I have one character with full ascended gear, I pretty much use him for dungeons and all levels of fractals. The character I most often WvW with is running full exotics (except for rings/accessories are ascended), and I do just fine.

I got full ascended to maximize my potential. Did I notice a difference with full armor? Yes. Was it game changing? No.

Ayrilana.1396:

I got full ascended to maximize my potential. Did I notice a difference with full armor? Yes. Was it game changing? No.

This ^^^^^^^

It is exactly my experience, a noticed difference but nothing to give me a edge, now the weapons depending on your playstyle will give more DPS but again nothing that other boosters like food will give for way less money. Of course there is the argument that ascended and the food boosts could give you much better stats, but the fact is I still die regardless…lol.

It takes roughly 250gold to craft to 500. Crafting the ascended item(s) themselves does not cost nearly as much. I have leveled Huntsman, Leatherworker, Artificer and Weaponsmithing all to 500 and it is very costly to do so even if you follow guides. Unfortunately I think your best bet is either to farm like crazy or to whip out the ’ol credit card and buy some gems to convert to gold. If you do the latter option however, I suggest buying your son a few nice items just for a treat, like a kite and some minis or something (:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

It takes roughly 250gold to craft to 500. Crafting the ascended item(s) themselves does not cost nearly as much. I have leveled Huntsman, Leatherworker, Artificer and Weaponsmithing all to 500 and it is very costly to do so even if you follow guides. Unfortunately I think your best bet is either to farm like crazy or to whip out the ’ol credit card and buy some gems to convert to gold. If you do the latter option however, I suggest buying your son a few nice items just for a treat, like a kite and some minis or something (:

Actually, we do have some gems left over from having to buy my son’s new character slot. I’ve never heard of being able to convert gems into gold. Where/how is this done? Thanks.

(BTW my son’s reward from his dad when he got his Charr Warrior to 80 recently was a full set of Exotic Armor, Sigil and Weapons. He was elated.)

fourhim.3584:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

It takes roughly 250gold to craft to 500. Crafting the ascended item(s) themselves does not cost nearly as much. I have leveled Huntsman, Leatherworker, Artificer and Weaponsmithing all to 500 and it is very costly to do so even if you follow guides. Unfortunately I think your best bet is either to farm like crazy or to whip out the ’ol credit card and buy some gems to convert to gold. If you do the latter option however, I suggest buying your son a few nice items just for a treat, like a kite and some minis or something (:

Actually, we do have some gems left over from having to buy my son’s new character slot. I’ve never heard of being able to convert gems into gold. Where/how is this done? Thanks.

(BTW my son’s reward from his dad when he got his Charr Warrior to 80 recently was a full set of Exotic Armor, Sigil and Weapons. He was elated.)

Lol, you are an awesome Dad. You guys probably have rich future playing games together and hanging out, I only hope for the same when I have my own!

As a ‘spendthrift’ player, I’m perfectly fine with Exotics.

I did leverage Laurels and Commendations, so that my usual dungeon running character has 20 AR through trinkets (with the option for 25, but that’s on a Cleric’s amulet). My focus is on helping others start out in various ways, so sticking to fractals below 30 (and usually below 20) is just fine with my current loadout. If I can get the rings infused (and steel myself to make Mawdrey /w infusion slot), running below L40 is possible too.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

It takes roughly 250gold to craft to 500. Crafting the ascended item(s) themselves does not cost nearly as much. I have leveled Huntsman, Leatherworker, Artificer and Weaponsmithing all to 500 and it is very costly to do so even if you follow guides. Unfortunately I think your best bet is either to farm like crazy or to whip out the ’ol credit card and buy some gems to convert to gold. If you do the latter option however, I suggest buying your son a few nice items just for a treat, like a kite and some minis or something (:

It’s ~77 gold for weapon smithing and thats likely purchasing at sell price.

Hayashi.3416:

The cost of making an ascended weapon from crafting level zero varies with the weapon but is approximately 150-160 gold for lvl 500 in that weapon type profession, and then another 30 for the weapon itself, all costs included.

25 Gold won’t cut it. Stick to exotics.

And while ascended is very slightly better than exotic, the difference is entirely dwarfed by the stats that using food gives you. even cheap level 70 odd food. I have never understood people that invest hundreds of gold in ascendeds, but refuse to spend 2 silver on food per hour. I could earn back the difference by harvesting any random iron node.

Also, search for Skale Venom on the wiki. It’s a copper-priced utility consumable that can be used together with food – the vulnerability increases kill rates and the weakness reduces damage dealt by mobs.

You may find the effects from cheap food and skale venom to already make a noticeable difference in play.

Skale venom. Sounds nice so I wiki’d it. 10% chance. It only lasts 10 minutes so it has to be frequently reapplied and this:

Bug:
Skills that Bounce have a chance of ~20% to inflict the effect on the player instead of the target.

Ow.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Skale_Venom_

Dont blow your money on ascended gear.

• ascended gear should never have been added to the game. it is the epitome of Anet betraying their promise to not have a gear grind or a pay2win system.
• fortunately, its only marginally better than exotic gear. a full set (which is prohibitively expensive) is about a 10% stat improvement.
• If you ever plan on changing the type of stats you wear on your gear, ascended is not a practical investment. Maybe today your ranger is traps and has a good critical hit chance, but next month you decide to play with signets instead and no longer want to have 30 points in skirmishing. When you do that, you would probably want to get some gear with precision to make up for the loss of precsion when you took points out of the skirmishing tree. If you invested 700g making ascended armor/weapons of one type, now that armor isnt useful because you want to try a different spec. If you were only wearing exotics, the cost for changing into new gear (and the loss of not using the old gear) is MUCH lower.
• WvW is incredible. Its not done nearly as well in GW2 as it has been done in other games (like DAoC), but it still is by far the best mode GW2 has to offer. Check it out sometime. Capture a keep with your son, die together getting run over by enemy players, save each other from thieves!
• Through daily rewards (Laurels) and WvW tokens, you can get ascended jewelry from vendors in the WvW starting areas. This is nice because its much cheaper than crafting it, and also because you can transfer the jewelry to whatever character that would benefit from it if you decide those stats no longer work for the original character’s build. While you can “thoeretically” transfer ascended armor and weapons around, the odds that your other characters would make use of your ranger’s weapons or armor are very low (as only your engineer could share the leather and only the guardian attempt to use of a few ranger weapons like sword or torch)
• The game is meant to be played at the exotic level. If your other 80’s are in less than full exotics, they are not as strong as what a level 80 is expected to be.

short story:

• get full exotics for every toon you play regularly
• experiment with wvw
• if you want ascended stuff, start with jewelry first as it is the most transferable and far cheaper to acquire

Skip ascendeds. Ascended gear is only really required for running high level Fractals. The trinkets can be a nice boost and are available for badges, laurels, and guild commendations (I used a combination of all three for my two favorite characters) so you don’t have to dig too deep into your pockets.

I have some ascended weapons, but the difference is negligible. Building them took me literally hundreds of gold and months of playtime. You’re much better off changing your stat block entirely than by upgrading your equipment from exotics if you want different results. Try either Knight’s or Soldier’s stat armor for survivability or Berserker’s or Assassin’s stats for more DPS.

No-one has mentioned that ascended gear is account-bound, so that zerkers’ greatsword u made for ur guardian can be banked and used on ur ranger.

Ur engi won’t see much love from asc gear (due to the other classes you play), but off the top of my head if u made any one of these: staff, sceptre, focus, sword, greatsword, axe, warhorn, trident, spear, shield, at least two of ur chars could use it.

Unless you happen to have 7200 silk scraps in your inventory, there is no way you have enough of the materials…

That alone costs over 200 gold at current prices.

There is no way ascended is worth it over exotic.

I don’t recommend using karma armor at this time. If you put expensive runes into it, they’re locked inside the armor forever (yeah, you could use the extractor, but that costs so much more than any rune, and is one use only). The same with WvW armor. If you want exotic, the best way is to loot it, or craft it.

No to mention you can get Exotic armor for 1g in WvW,you just need enough badges,you can do EotM for that

You mentioned that you have not leveled crafting at all on most of your characters. In case you don’t know, you’d really only want to level crafting of a specific crafting profession on one character. For example only level weaponsmith on one character. And each character can have 2 active crafting professions by default. In my case, I use my guardian for Armorsmith & Weaponsmith. Mesmer for Artificing & Tailoring. I don’t repeat those crafting profession on any other characters. If I need heavy armor on my warrior, I craft it with my guardian.

I didn’t notice anyone reply to your query as to converting gems to gold. Open BLTC (B key), select the currency exchange tab and then click the big area that’s labeled Trade Gems for Gold.

Don’t start crafting ascended until you have enough money to throw at it. It isn’t done on a budget. Get other stuff done first and then wait until you have a big pile of disposable money that can buy those 250 stacks, one after another.

If you’re having trouble in fractals and dungeons then stay in exotics and don’t go beyond fractal 30 until you’re finding it easier. Skill should take you through the higher fractals, theoretically, and the ascended gear should just be there for the AR.

Unless you plan on doing high level Fractals, there is really no need to have Ascended gear. Exotics more than suffice for everything else in the game.

Gear progression keeps myself returning to this game every few months.

I had made a 2h, back, glove, neck (I think, bottom left slot just above sea weapon?)and I’m almost ready to make something else like boots.

I am not much for the story in this game as it is not the main game I play so any sort of gear stats upgrade in gw2 is why I don’t uninstall.

I have my main Thief full ascended, armor, 4 weapons, trinkets and back piece. They all have WvWvW infusions (power for offensive and vitality for defensive). But this makes sense only if you do a lot of W3 or fractals, but I don’t like fractals so thats why my infusions were bought from W3 (which are cheaper btw, because they coat less laurels and some badges of honor). For PvE stuff you can do fine with exotics.
Going full ascended will cost you a lot of gold and time.

Well, I sold all my materials of value and I feel like a rich man now I have over 170 gold now, which should be ample to put all my characters, and the 4 we are still leveling, into full exotic gear at 80. Not to mention that they will acquire more stuff to sell along their way to 80, and beyond. I didn’t even look at trading gems for gold when I realized how much we had.

Thanks for the great advice. As a lesson to other new players out there, BANK all those materials, even if you’re never going to craft anything. When you get to level 80 those stacks will definitely come in handy when you “cash them in”.

I acutally did some WVW last night with my Ranger. It was actually pretty neat (even though I died once). I look forward to doing that some more, but I have a LOT to learn. For example, I couldn’t figure out why, after beating all the Veterans outside the gate and on the walls, I still could not enter the enemy position. I couldn’t damage the gate. Do I need a siege engine of some type for that?

And I also looked at those Ascended trinkets that were mentioned. Even on the trinkets, I am NOT impressed with the stat increases. My armor is exotic, but my trinkets are still rares, so I was expecting a big difference. But the jump from Rare to Ascended was something like 10 in the minor stats and 20 on the main (including the jewel on the rare of course). And when I looked at the “infusions” they add FOUR more of one stat. Am I seeing that right – only FOUR?! Anyway, I was pretty underwhelmed at the Ascended “accessory” gear I looked at, especially since I don’t think those affect my appearance in any way.

There has only been one ascended item I managed to craft with my BEAR HANDS (yes, that’s intentional), and that one is Mawdrey. Personally, I think it’s worth it as long as you know exactly what type of Ascended item do you want to make. If your reasons are for the stats alone, you’d definitely be better off getting an Exotic that promises the same stats at a lesser cost. I went for them to begin because of aesthetics.

Well… I played the dungeons before in full rares, it works but most people look down upon it, it works without problems, if you know the drill. Exotics add 5% in stats, dmg, armor, ascended add another 5%…

In effect you know you use exotics (without food) in your fights like using a rare build with midlevel nourishment (+5% dmg given and -5% dmg taken) .
And so on with the ascended…

So using ascended (without food) is fighting like using exotics with food. So buy some food and play on. If you get a nice drop use it, make it a chestpiece if the stats are right and think:

“Well I run my game with all exotics, so I’m more pro then you using all ascended, casue it show more skill running in Tyria using exotics then ascended.”

You can buy ascended trinkets for a relatively low cost, doing guild missions, saving up laurels or just having some luck in wvw or fractals if you ever start doing those.
I can recommend the trinkets.

I’ll be honest I got 13 characters @ l80, 1 full ascended, 5 with asc. weapons and trinkets, 4 more with asc. trinkets, and 3 in full exotics.

If you would choose to make acendeds I’d advise you to go for the weapons not the armor. a weapon costs 30-85 gold, an armor piece is generally more expensive and adds less to stats… Also If you happen to be in a party (in dungeons) and you are wearing ascended armor you seem to get aggro easier then the people in exotics (though I run some toughness which couls also explain it).

GL, hope the information people posted in this thread was of use to you both.
I hope you and your son will have a lot of fun.

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

In effect you know you use exotics (without food) in your fights like using a rare build with midlevel nourishment (+5% dmg given and -5% dmg taken) .
And so on with the ascended…

So using ascended (without food) is fighting like using exotics with food. So buy some food and play on. If you get a nice drop use it, make it a chestpiece if the stats are right and think:

I disagree with this. Whether or not someone chooses to use food is not relevant.