Guild Wars 2

Okay, some of you may judge me after this post but please hear me out.

I have 15 char slots of which 12 are level 80’s and the other 3 are not far from 80, so I decided it was time to begin to get the mats I need to kit ALL of them out with ascended armor and weapons.

I decided to get all the augurs stones first. 1 per vision crystal and 1 per lesser vision crystal that I needed. Including weapons I need 121 augurs stones to make the crystals I need for all chars. So I headed over to Mayani and saw that I had 1,175 spirit shards. This got me 58 of the stones I needed. That is when I hit a brick wall, no shards left.

So I spoke to a few players, checked a few things and it appears that it would take me just over a year to get the remaining spirit shards I need for the augurs stones.

This is based on getting 3 shards from dailies. Cannot include drops in this as that is RNG.

So I personally think the system is broke. Before the change, you used your skill points earned on augurs stones. I have a lot of spare hero points but I cannot spend them on these items.

If I had zero shards and wanted to make a legendary, it would take you 66 days just to get enough shards for a bloodstone shard. I mean really? This is ridiculous.

This problem will rear it’s head next when everyone spends their remaining hero points on specialisations, who have very few spirit shards. They will want to make one of the new legendaries and will be like: what the hell, 66 days of dailies to do that??

For the record, I’m not a fan of how dailies are done. As it pulls me away from mapping my chars.

Your points of view are welcome. It will currently take me 473 days of dailies to get enough shards for my stones.

Nor do I want to farm levels on my chars either, that would be insanely boring.

Your points of view are most welcome :-)

Don’t want to farm levels, but also want to be able to quickly get spirit shards to outfit 15 characters in full ascended….

Man, first world MMO problems lol…

Are the augur’s stones really your biggest impediment right now? My head is getting dizzy thinking about all the ascended mats you’re going to need…

Well to play along in your fantasy, you could run fractals for shards and occasional armor box drops, saving out on one stone for every drop.

Since monday, I got 22 shards, including 15 from dailies. So, 7 came out of playing, let’s say 2 hours a day, without any farming.

That’s not so bad.

Besides, you can still get spirit shards by using a Tome of Knowledge with a level 80.

I would advise you not to focus on one mat at a time, but rather on one character. It may be much quicker.

That’s a possibility, but would it be faster than levelling?

My point is, if you have NO spirit shards, then it is another time gated item to get. You shouldn’t have to play the game a different way. I am mapping all my chars one area at a time as at some point, I’d like all legendaries too.

Ascended armor and legendaries are natural progressions for players who have done most content. Just because I want to start getting one item off my list first isn’t not shouldn’t be an issue.

Before the change, skill points could be spent on skills AND mayani items. Hero points can only be spent on skills and specialisations. So I have loads of hero points after unlocking everything on every level 80 with nothing to spend them on.

Unless the ratio for skill points to hero points was not 1:1 then this causes the discrepancy.

No matter which way you look at it, ascended armor and legendaries force you to do things that you did not have to de before.

That’s good advice on concentrating on one character at a time, one that I will no doubt have to end up doing. BUT, I will still have to do dailies and other activities that I don’t normally do to get the shards needed for the other characters.

I feel you OP. I’ve been working on the same exact thing and the only problem I have are SSs. It’s gotten so bad that all I do now is grind for SSs. This system is more punishing for continous ascended crafters imo.

Henley, if you want Spirit Shards, just run sPvP. Spirit Chard bags (3 per bag) are located in every other tier of a track (right along-side of Tomes of Knowledge). This is by far the quickest way to get them.

Before now, you still had to relevel your 80 an ungodly amount of times to pull in the proper amount of skill points, so I really don’t see what your argument is.

Hero Points have nothing to do with Auger Stones anymore. There is a set number of Hero Points whereby once all Elite Specializations are revealed in totality (in theory) you should have 0 Hero points remaining.

I would’ve been making one weapon / item at a time instead of stocking up. That way as you were collecting other material, sigils, etc, you could be slowly adding back to your spirit shard pool. (while working on my mesmer, drops I get during this time would stock up for warrior or thief, etc)

Also you really can’t limit yourself to JUST the dailies, because there are other ways of collecting them while playing the game, even new people have access to those other options.

Draknar.5748:

Don’t want to farm levels, but also want to be able to quickly get spirit shards to outfit 15 characters in full ascended….

Man, first world MMO problems lol…

Given that you don’t get Spirit Shards for leveling after 80, how is this relevant?

ScribeTheMad.7614:

Draknar.5748:

Don’t want to farm levels, but also want to be able to quickly get spirit shards to outfit 15 characters in full ascended….

Man, first world MMO problems lol…

Given that you don’t get Spirit Shards for leveling after 80, how is this relevant?

It’s not anymore, but it is exactly what you had to do before the update. The implication by OP was that it was somehow easier to get Skill Points before the change, but this is largely untrue (although does have some merit).

You do get Spirit Shards from random drops, from PvP tracks, from dailies, and from daily logins, so there are many ways to actually get them, including ways that you previously could not get Skill Points from.

Right, thank you for all of your replies. It seems the most helpful way of getting them is the chest farm in SW as there is a chance you can get one in a bag (not sure what drop rate is) but at least I can be getting loot to help me towards my goal.

This is my best way forward as I don’t mind the chest farm. I’ll try and reply after 250 bags have been opened to let you see how viable an option it is.

Hopefully drop rate of a shard isn’t rarer than an exotic :-)

You should actually calculate the amount of ascended materials you will need, and consider that you can only craft one of each a day yourself. So unless you’re going to buy the mats, I think they will be the bigger time gate in your plans.

SW chest farm and Farm Champions bags ….

HenleyLegoMan.4987:

If I had zero shards and wanted to make a legendary, it would take you 66 days just to get enough shards for a bloodstone shard. I mean really? This is ridiculous.

You’re right…. why should people have to work to craft a legendary? This is an outrage. Anet should just award players legendary weapons in their daily login rewards.

MiniEquine.6014:

Henley, if you want Spirit Shards, just run sPvP. Spirit Chard bags (3 per bag) are located in every other tier of a track (right along-side of Tomes of Knowledge). This is by far the quickest way to get them.

Before now, you still had to relevel your 80 an ungodly amount of times to pull in the proper amount of skill points, so I really don’t see what your argument is.

Before now, you could take a character with little map completion to do skill challenges for skill points.

I’m in a similar boat- I have everything finished for a legendary but I’m 20 spirit shards short. Even after consuming 86 tomes of knowledge. It’s not that many, but the skill point nerf feels very real to me. I realize hero points will probably be very useful later, so I’m holding my tongue on the issue until I see just how important they are. Would be great if they allowed us to trade spirit shards for hero points and vice versa.

In the meantime my choices are to PvP (haven’t been into it lately), or Silverwastes for champ bags. I did get quite a few while recently grinding out the luminescent armor, but my last chest run (50 bags, I get bored easily in there), only gave me two shards.

So now we have Silverwastes, the best all around map. You’re getting constant loot, karma, some obsidian shards, spirit shards… I even brought a level 75 in there to finish leveling and got it done pretty quickly. Can’t wait for the other maps in the game to be equally rewarding…. Sorry for going off on a tangent.

> Has a high number of characters
> Gets mad when they have to spend time gearing them all

Bro……

Spirit shards also drop as loot from trash mobs. I’ve had a few. But you gotta pay attention to the loot bar to spot them.

So OP complains about the difficulty of getting shards while stating that the same method that players got most of their skill points before the update doesn’t count simply because it’s RNG? Never mind that many players likely never got three skill points per day by leveling on a consistent basis before the update.

HenleyLegoMan.4987:

Okay, some of you may judge me after this post but please hear me out.

I have 15 char slots of which 12 are level 80’s and the other 3 are not far from 80, so I decided it was time to begin to get the mats I need to kit ALL of them out with ascended armor and weapons.

I decided to get all the augurs stones first. 1 per vision crystal and 1 per lesser vision crystal that I needed. Including weapons I need 121 augurs stones to make the crystals I need for all chars. So I headed over to Mayani and saw that I had 1,175 spirit shards. This got me 58 of the stones I needed. That is when I hit a brick wall, no shards left.

So I spoke to a few players, checked a few things and it appears that it would take me just over a year to get the remaining spirit shards I need for the augurs stones.

This is based on getting 3 shards from dailies. Cannot include drops in this as that is RNG.

So I personally think the system is broke. Before the change, you used your skill points earned on augurs stones. I have a lot of spare hero points but I cannot spend them on these items.

If I had zero shards and wanted to make a legendary, it would take you 66 days just to get enough shards for a bloodstone shard. I mean really? This is ridiculous.

This problem will rear it’s head next when everyone spends their remaining hero points on specialisations, who have very few spirit shards. They will want to make one of the new legendaries and will be like: what the hell, 66 days of dailies to do that??

For the record, I’m not a fan of how dailies are done. As it pulls me away from mapping my chars.

Your points of view are welcome. It will currently take me 473 days of dailies to get enough shards for my stones.

Nor do I want to farm levels on my chars either, that would be insanely boring.

Your points of view are most welcome :-)

You realize that champ bags give spirit shards at the same rate (or better, didnt read much about them in patch notes) that they gave skill point scrolls right? AND you’re going to need said champ bags for farming the bloodstone dust. So….. yea, not as much of a problem as you’d expect. ESPECIALLY when you realize you basically need 90 laurels for the armor recipes. Another 60 or so probably if you’re crafting weapons too. Unless you’ve got those already, that’s gonna take you at least a month.

rhapsody.3615:

MiniEquine.6014:

Henley, if you want Spirit Shards, just run sPvP. Spirit Chard bags (3 per bag) are located in every other tier of a track (right along-side of Tomes of Knowledge). This is by far the quickest way to get them.

Before now, you still had to relevel your 80 an ungodly amount of times to pull in the proper amount of skill points, so I really don’t see what your argument is.

Before now, you could take a character with little map completion to do skill challenges for skill points.

I’m in a similar boat- I have everything finished for a legendary but I’m 20 spirit shards short. Even after consuming 86 tomes of knowledge. It’s not that many, but the skill point nerf feels very real to me. I realize hero points will probably be very useful later, so I’m holding my tongue on the issue until I see just how important they are. Would be great if they allowed us to trade spirit shards for hero points and vice versa.

In the meantime my choices are to PvP (haven’t been into it lately), or Silverwastes for champ bags. I did get quite a few while recently grinding out the luminescent armor, but my last chest run (50 bags, I get bored easily in there), only gave me two shards.

So now we have Silverwastes, the best all around map. You’re getting constant loot, karma, some obsidian shards, spirit shards… I even brought a level 75 in there to finish leveling and got it done pretty quickly. Can’t wait for the other maps in the game to be equally rewarding…. Sorry for going off on a tangent.

Skill challenges were not an ideal way to do this because of how long it took. You were almost better off just farming for skill scrolls, though completing map exploration isn’t bad and has other benefits.

However, I have had the opposite experience. I find it easier to get Spirit Shards now rather than before, but I also do a couple of PvP matches every day so I am getting no less than 3 per day, excluding any dailies, etc. If you do 3/4 of the PvP daily achievements every day (the profession win gives more track reward), you get 1 Tome of Knowledge, 3 Spirit Shards, and some amount of equipment, sometimes rare or exotic. You can get all these after 1 game if you win and are playing as one of the listed professions that day. Winning with the other listed profession will almost give you about 2 track cycles for rewards.

HenleyLegoMan.4987:

Okay, some of you may judge me after this post but please hear me out.

I have 15 char slots of which 12 are level 80’s and the other 3 are not far from 80, so I decided it was time to begin to get the mats I need to kit ALL of them out with ascended armor and weapons.

I decided to get all the augurs stones first. 1 per vision crystal and 1 per lesser vision crystal that I needed. Including weapons I need 121 augurs stones to make the crystals I need for all chars. So I headed over to Mayani and saw that I had 1,175 spirit shards. This got me 58 of the stones I needed. That is when I hit a brick wall, no shards left.

So I spoke to a few players, checked a few things and it appears that it would take me just over a year to get the remaining spirit shards I need for the augurs stones.

This is based on getting 3 shards from dailies. Cannot include drops in this as that is RNG.

So I personally think the system is broke. Before the change, you used your skill points earned on augurs stones. I have a lot of spare hero points but I cannot spend them on these items.

If I had zero shards and wanted to make a legendary, it would take you 66 days just to get enough shards for a bloodstone shard. I mean really? This is ridiculous.

This problem will rear it’s head next when everyone spends their remaining hero points on specialisations, who have very few spirit shards. They will want to make one of the new legendaries and will be like: what the hell, 66 days of dailies to do that??

For the record, I’m not a fan of how dailies are done. As it pulls me away from mapping my chars.

Your points of view are welcome. It will currently take me 473 days of dailies to get enough shards for my stones.

Nor do I want to farm levels on my chars either, that would be insanely boring.

Your points of view are most welcome :-)

Not that i like putting some more salt into your already tearing eyes (ok, i do) but spirit shards wont be your tightest bottle neck.

Assuming you want to craft 121 different items of ascended gear, you will also have to purchase 121 different recipes, which cost 5 laurels (and 3g) a pop, which adds up to 605 laurels. And thats not considering ascended trinkets, which also cost laurels.
For each login rotation of 28 days, you are awarded 35 laurels and the last chest gives you the opportunity to get another 20 laurels (unless you opt for vision crystals and ascended refined mats). Even at 55 laurels per 28 days, it will take you a good year to obtain them all, nevermind the trinkets.

Also dont underestimate the amount of dust/shards/ore you will need.
Last year, i decided to craft 5 different asc sets for my warrior. Gold isnt really an obstacle for me, so i crafted away. During the 3rd set, i ran out of bloodstone dust, which i could farm. During the 4th I ran out of laurels.

As already mentioned, take it one set at a time, you will make better progress.

Wanze.8410:

Not that i like putting some more salt into your already tearing eyes (ok, i do) but spirit shards wont be your tightest bottle neck.

Assuming you want to craft 121 different items of ascended gear, you will also have to purchase 121 different recipes, which cost 5 laurels (and 3g) a pop, which adds up to 605 laurels. And thats not considering ascended trinkets, which also cost laurels.
For each login rotation of 28 days, you are awarded 35 laurels and the last chest gives you the opportunity to get another 20 laurels (unless you opt for vision crystals and ascended refined mats). Even at 55 laurels per 28 days, it will take you a good year to obtain them all, nevermind the trinkets.

Also dont underestimate the amount of dust/shards/ore you will need.
Last year, i decided to craft 5 different asc sets for my warrior. Gold isnt really an obstacle for me, so i crafted away. During the 3rd set, i ran out of bloodstone dust, which i could farm. During the 4th I ran out of laurels.

As already mentioned, take it one set at a time, you will make better progress.

Actually wanze, he only needs 90 for the armor, 30 for each weight. The new forge conversions means for a minor investment, he can skip the need for laurels for every other armor stat prefix.

I’ve gotten spirit shards from champ bags, random mobs, etc; they don’t just drop from daily completion.

FYI for others thinking of crafting a ton of ascended gear at once: do the research before running into a bottleneck. The ol’ “measure twice, cut once” philosophy applies to efficient crafting.

Basandra Skye.4031:

Wanze.8410:

Not that i like putting some more salt into your already tearing eyes (ok, i do) but spirit shards wont be your tightest bottle neck.

Assuming you want to craft 121 different items of ascended gear, you will also have to purchase 121 different recipes, which cost 5 laurels (and 3g) a pop, which adds up to 605 laurels. And thats not considering ascended trinkets, which also cost laurels.
For each login rotation of 28 days, you are awarded 35 laurels and the last chest gives you the opportunity to get another 20 laurels (unless you opt for vision crystals and ascended refined mats). Even at 55 laurels per 28 days, it will take you a good year to obtain them all, nevermind the trinkets.

Also dont underestimate the amount of dust/shards/ore you will need.
Last year, i decided to craft 5 different asc sets for my warrior. Gold isnt really an obstacle for me, so i crafted away. During the 3rd set, i ran out of bloodstone dust, which i could farm. During the 4th I ran out of laurels.

As already mentioned, take it one set at a time, you will make better progress.

Actually wanze, he only needs 90 for the armor, 30 for each weight. The new forge conversions means for a minor investment, he can skip the need for laurels for every other armor stat prefix.

Thats right but it would add another 10 spirit shards for the anthology of heroes for each augurs stone he purchases.
I dont think adding 50% more spirit shards to the crafting cost is a viable option for him, considering his initial complaint.

Maybe, but with how much easier shards are to get than laurels, it’d beat spending a year on laurels.

Basandra Skye.4031:

Maybe, but with how much easier shards are to get than laurels, it’d beat spending a year on laurels.

Considering all costs, gold and account bound mats, i would be surprised, if he finished crafting his desired sets in under a year anyways.

Wanze.8410:

Basandra Skye.4031:

Maybe, but with how much easier shards are to get than laurels, it’d beat spending a year on laurels.

Considering all costs, gold and account bound mats, i would be surprised, if he finished crafting his desired sets in under a year anyways.

He probably could if he used the Anthologies. It’d leave his laurels open to be spent on the T6 bags to sell and make money to fund the crafting. Unless he got kittenty luck and got a lot of venom sacs.

MiniEquine.6014:

rhapsody.3615:

MiniEquine.6014:

Henley, if you want Spirit Shards, just run sPvP. Spirit Chard bags (3 per bag) are located in every other tier of a track (right along-side of Tomes of Knowledge). This is by far the quickest way to get them.

Before now, you still had to relevel your 80 an ungodly amount of times to pull in the proper amount of skill points, so I really don’t see what your argument is.

Before now, you could take a character with little map completion to do skill challenges for skill points.

I’m in a similar boat- I have everything finished for a legendary but I’m 20 spirit shards short. Even after consuming 86 tomes of knowledge. It’s not that many, but the skill point nerf feels very real to me. I realize hero points will probably be very useful later, so I’m holding my tongue on the issue until I see just how important they are. Would be great if they allowed us to trade spirit shards for hero points and vice versa.

In the meantime my choices are to PvP (haven’t been into it lately), or Silverwastes for champ bags. I did get quite a few while recently grinding out the luminescent armor, but my last chest run (50 bags, I get bored easily in there), only gave me two shards.

So now we have Silverwastes, the best all around map. You’re getting constant loot, karma, some obsidian shards, spirit shards… I even brought a level 75 in there to finish leveling and got it done pretty quickly. Can’t wait for the other maps in the game to be equally rewarding…. Sorry for going off on a tangent.

Skill challenges were not an ideal way to do this because of how long it took. You were almost better off just farming for skill scrolls, though completing map exploration isn’t bad and has other benefits.

However, I have had the opposite experience. I find it easier to get Spirit Shards now rather than before, but I also do a couple of PvP matches every day so I am getting no less than 3 per day, excluding any dailies, etc. If you do 3/4 of the PvP daily achievements every day (the profession win gives more track reward), you get 1 Tome of Knowledge, 3 Spirit Shards, and some amount of equipment, sometimes rare or exotic. You can get all these after 1 game if you win and are playing as one of the listed professions that day. Winning with the other listed profession will almost give you about 2 track cycles for rewards.

Map completion went hand in hand with crafting a legendary. You’d get your Gift of Exploration + all of the skill points you needed (189 for map completion; by that time you should have earned 11 more) + karma from the hearts. Whether you find other ways of obtaining them easier or not, it’s a pretty fair amount that were taken away. I enjoy all parts of the game in moderation, so I have no problem doing other things to get what I need. I’m just really bummed that I’m getting less from the areas I am currently interested in playing.

I also missed mentioning – a large chunk of level up skill points probably came from dungeons. 3/4 of a level per dungeon, and if you’re doing a dungeon tour each day that added up. Someone had said an 80 only levels up 3 times during playing, but that really is dependent on how many hours you play; two hours of dungeons could get you 4-6 levels.

I think that’s enough QQ from me today :p

Basandra Skye.4031:

Wanze.8410:

Basandra Skye.4031:

Maybe, but with how much easier shards are to get than laurels, it’d beat spending a year on laurels.

Considering all costs, gold and account bound mats, i would be surprised, if he finished crafting his desired sets in under a year anyways.

He probably could if he used the Anthologies. It’d leave his laurels open to be spent on the T6 bags to sell and make money to fund the crafting. Unless he got kittenty luck and got a lot of venom sacs.

You can easily make 1g for each spirit shard, if you promote t1 refined common mats, i wouldnt use my laurels to buy t6 mats.

HenleyLegoMan.4987:

Right, thank you for all of your replies. It seems the most helpful way of getting them is the chest farm in SW as there is a chance you can get one in a bag (not sure what drop rate is) but at least I can be getting loot to help me towards my goal.

This is my best way forward as I don’t mind the chest farm. I’ll try and reply after 250 bags have been opened to let you see how viable an option it is.

Hopefully drop rate of a shard isn’t rarer than an exotic :-)

Try the Frostgorge Champfarm – got 3or 4 the other day in an hour.
BUT I agree with you – I hope anet will find a way to reward the boring node farmers and map completionists – how about 3 shards for each completed map for a start.

Evans.6347:

You should actually calculate the amount of ascended materials you will need, and consider that you can only craft one of each a day yourself. So unless you’re going to buy the mats, I think they will be the bigger time gate in your plans.

This.
Assuming you would have one character of each class (and I saw you have more), you would need a total of 230 Bolt of Damask, each requiring a Spool of Silk Weaving Thread, which you can craft only once a day.

So unless you plan to buy some Bolt of Damask (around 15g each atm), or already have some, gathering them will let you plenty of time to get those spirit shards.

Your goal is a long-term one

rhapsody.3615:

In the meantime my choices are to PvP (haven’t been into it lately), or Silverwastes for champ bags. I did get quite a few while recently grinding out the luminescent armor, but my last chest run (50 bags, I get bored easily in there), only gave me two shards.

Also dungeons, fractals, world bosses and WvW(including EotM). Also got one off a mosquito yesterday so basically anything other than Personal Story and Living World(because mobs in those do not drop loot) stuff will work.

I don’t understand how anyone can defend the cost remaining the same while the ease of obtaining the currency is made more difficult. I used to pull in 10-20 SP a day without batting an eye, now I’ve gained maybe 30 since they changed the system.

HenleyLegoMan.4987:

I have 15 char slots of which 12 are level 80’s and the other 3 are not far from 80, so I decided it was time to begin to get the mats I need to kit ALL of them out with ascended armor and weapons.

Hola mi amigo!

As others have stated, Spirit Shards are the least of your worries. You need to have 69,000 Silk scraps to start your Ascended journey. Even if I sold them to you at a deep discount, we’re talking over 1,000 Gold just for Silk scraps.

If I sold you all the Damask you need at a deep discount, that’s still over 3,000 Gold.

So the real question here is “Can you afford it?”

On a side note, I have about 3,500 shards that I don’t really need. If Anet allows me to sell them, that could speed up your progress.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I’ve gotten spirit shards from champ bags, random mobs, etc; they don’t just drop from daily completion.

FYI for others thinking of crafting a ton of ascended gear at once: do the research before running into a bottleneck. The ol’ “measure twice, cut once” philosophy applies to efficient crafting.

^^ This, for sure.

I wanted to outfit my five current characters with ascended gear. My first step was to create a spreadsheet to total the mat requirements and unavoidable costs for items that can’t be farmed. The numbers are daunting, to say the least, for just five characters. I can’t imagine doing it for 15.

As others have pointed out, spirit shards are the least of your worries. Enormous amounts of bloodstone, dragonite, fragments, and crystalline dust are bigger bottlenecks. Dark Matter doesn’t come any too easily, either, and don’t neglect the cost of all the reagents and gossamer thread that must be purchased.

After nearly a year of farming my buns off, I almost have enough of everything to replace the current weapon sets on each character with ascended weapons, making no allowance for alternate weapons that I would like to carry in inventory. Ascended armor for those characters is still a loooong way off.

Ascended crafting for people like us who routinely play more than one toon is not so much a long-term project as a multi-generational endeavor. Scene: A house in middle America. Time: The distant future. “Come on, kids, let’s go salvage some silk for great-grandpa’s birthday! You know he’d like that!” “Awwww, mom, do we haveta?”

BrettM.9062:

As others have pointed out, spirit shards are the least of your worries. Enormous amounts of bloodstone, dragonite, fragments, and crystalline dust are bigger bottlenecks. Dark Matter doesn’t come any too easily, either, and don’t neglect the cost of all the reagents and gossamer thread that must be purchased.

Not that i disagree in general but fragments dragonite and dust can indirectly be bought via t&t bags or wintersday gifts and for dark matter there are plenty of exotics that you can salvage and at least break even in cost, if not make a profit.

So those two problems could be solved with throwing gold at it.
When i crafted my 5 sets last year, the bags didnt have t7 mats in it.

feeeelll my judgement upon your soul!!!!!

you can get shards from champ bags, daily rewards.
heck you can outright get a crystals from the asc mat eaters
every 28 days of login you can get a crystal for doing nothing.

then you have the straight up asc box drops….. excluding my primary weaponset my main character is fully ascended. The only things I crafted were boots and gloves mainly out of ocd. im 3/6 of the way for a 2nd set of asc armor….still havent crafted. All gained extremely causal play starting from this last major patch. ascended gear too hard can confirm

How is it that you have so many level 80 characters, and less than 1200 spirit shards?

Across my two level 80s, I had 1,557 spirit shards when the change went live. To top it off, I’ve spent skill points on two legendaries, and a bunch of ascended crap.

I’m having similar shortages of spirit shards… even having prepared for the change by taking a couple characters skill point hunting right before I am at about 150 shards right now. I have made a number of legendaries… and I want to be prepared in case they make a new one I like by having one ready to go when the expansion comes out… and still many ascended items to go…. I am faced with the fact that I only get 3 shards from dailies on a typical day. The number of shards that drop in the world is very low… I had 40 champ bags and got 1 spirit shard. There is no longer any guaranteed way to get them… I used to be able to go and grab skill points around the world on lesser played characters when I needed them…. or even leveling up used to give them… which you would do while grabbing skill points typically. Either the spirit shard costs need to be reduced or the acquisition methods for spirit shards need to be buffed.

To be honest, you got some spirit shard every time you complete your daily.
Doing event help a lot to since some event tend to grant some shard to you.
You also obtain randomly spirit shards on mobs you kill (not sur if you need to be level 80 or not)

At the moment, I’m sitting on 6k800 spirit shards while only playing 2 hour a day. From my point of view it’s even to easy to collect them.

NB.: I’m pretty sure that WvW may be a good farm spot for spirit shards since it’s in this mode that you need them the most and it should be loot from any opponent bags. (When you see how many bag you get in zerg v zerg you should be able to achieve a lot of shard in a short time)

Quarktastic.1027:

How is it that you have so many level 80 characters, and less than 1200 spirit shards?

Across my two level 80s, I had 1,557 spirit shards when the change went live. To top it off, I’ve spent skill points on two legendaries, and a bunch of ascended crap.

I have 11 level 80’s and two spirit shards. That’s right, two. I have crafted 13 legendaries, a few Mad Moons, arachnophobia, four sets of ascended armor, and other mystic forge recipes. If I didn’t do all of those things, I’d be well over 3000. So it is possible to have many characters and be low on skill points.

Because crafting 12 ascended sets all in one go is what everyone does right… this complaint seems legit…

Evans.6347:

Spirit shards also drop as loot from trash mobs. I’ve had a few. But you gotta pay attention to the loot bar to spot them.

I have gotten ONE so far yesterday the first time since the patch.

And i have made maybe 100 level in that time, and all for nothing

Quarktastic.1027:

How is it that you have so many level 80 characters, and less than 1200 spirit shards?

Across my two level 80s, I had 1,557 spirit shards when the change went live. To top it off, I’ve spent skill points on two legendaries, and a bunch of ascended crap.

Um, you realize that excess skill points primarily came from after leveling to 80 right? If you spent the same time playing 2 chars as someone else did on say 20, well, you’re going to have more as they had to spend time skilling up and leveling all 20 of those characters while you just racked up the points.

That said, yeah when it went live I had like 2k and change, it’ll last me a while, but I do find the change annoying with the augur stones remaining the same price.

You do realize a single bolt of Damask is 14 gold, right?

Are you even remotely close to being able to buy any of the other junk you need for your characters?

Ascended items are account bound, so technically it is not necessary to make individual sets for each one of your characters. It being annoying to shift things around is another issue.

I don’t really think it’s broken as much as your needs being outside the bounds of typical play. The design is intended to be a long term goal. 15 full ascended sets would be over 10k gold, that in itself is quite a endeavor.

Dude, start with one or two weapons. You are royally setting yourself up for failure like this.

I rather doubt that getting the shards for the remaining auger stones will be a problem. I crafted over 50 ascended weapons and that alone took me about 2 years. If the OP crafts one set of armor per char, by the time he uses up the augur stones he has already bought he should have lots of spirit shards.

However I can recommend he look into the PvP dailies. Those are a dependable, additional source of spirit shards and can be done fairly quickly. If he doesn’t like PvP, he can go into the maps that advertise themselves as for dailies as they are for PvE people and have their own rules.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

If he doesn’t like PvP, he can go into the maps that advertise themselves as for dailies as they are for PvE people and have their own rules.

rofl, this game

I crafted two weapons in two years.
Yesterday I surprised myself with how many mats just piled up in my bank/alts. I was at 460 artificing, decided to use a crafting booster and see how far I can push. As it turned out I didn’t only have enough material to reach 500 but craft a zojja staff as well.
Sometimes I love playing casually xD