Guild Wars 2

I just crafted my first ascended gear, Zojja’s helm. It took a lot of time and gold. In hindsight, it was worth the effort only because it forced me to research how to get every ingredient, and in turn, exposed me to all sorts of game content, guild runs and meta-events that I may have missed or certainly not have focused on for farming. I had blindly approached the need for the ascended gear as the natural next step after exotic armor. But when I compared the stats of the ascended to the exotic, I had to question, “wow, was it really worth all I had been through? Am I going to do this five more times?” Of course, that lead me into researching fractals which, in my typical style, had gone ignored up ‘til now. The irony here, as it is in almost all MMOs I’ve played, is that you do end-game content to get gear to enable you to do end-game content. Oh sure, there is the fun part of the challenge of the bosses, there’s the camaraderie of guildies and there’s the “mine is bigger than yours” moment in chat when you show your latest conquest —- but all that gets old after the 15th or 20th time. In the end, I decided to level up another character and relegate the next piece of ascended armor and doing fractals to a more casual pursuit.

I have a full set of each weight and 2 are sitting in the bank because there is absolutely no point in wearing them with the way I play the game. It is a purely personal decision, if you play or plan on playing high level fractals, yes make as much as you can. If you do not have any plans to do fractals but want some anyway sure go for it. If you don’t want to do fractals and can’t be bothered with the item, don’t make them.

teoteodore.2904:

I just crafted my first ascended gear, Zojja’s helm. It took a lot of time and gold. In hindsight, it was worth the effort only because it forced me to research how to get every ingredient, and in turn, exposed me to all sorts of game content, guild runs and meta-events that I may have missed or certainly not have focused on for farming. I had blindly approached the need for the ascended gear as the natural next step after exotic armor. But when I compared the stats of the ascended to the exotic, I had to question, “wow, was it really worth all I had been through? Am I going to do this five more times?” Of course, that lead me into researching fractals which, in my typical style, had gone ignored up ‘til now. The irony here, as it is in almost all MMOs I’ve played, is that you do end-game content to get gear to enable you to do end-game content. Oh sure, there is the fun part of the challenge of the bosses, there’s the camaraderie of guildies and there’s the “mine is bigger than yours” moment in chat when you show your latest conquest —- but all that gets old after the 15th or 20th time. In the end, I decided to level up another character and relegate the next piece of ascended armor and doing fractals to a more casual pursuit.

Why did you pick helm as your first piece of ascended armor to craft which is with lowest stats, instead of going for coat which have +141 for major and +101 for minor stats, with defence at 330?

Because it’s way more expensive and it’s better to hope for drops for the chest/legs.

A full set of ascended armor and weapons increases your total stats by less than 2% against exotics. On a purely stats base in PvE they are not worth it. PvP uses it’s own stats system so ascended are no better than whites there. Where that little bit extra can pay off is in a raid or WvW.

If you do fractals you will definitely want ascended equipment, they along with legendary are the ones with agony resist slots. The other side of this is that low level fractals don’t need any and you can get by with putting them on jewellery for a good bit.

For legendary armor I doubt if this will be any benefit at all. The problem is the Runes. You put them on and, unless they come up with a nifty remove or switch option. you are stuck with them.

I would make sure you have attempted all of the professions you are interested in before deciding on one to use in fractals, I switched a couple of times and ended up doing fractals and dungeons on guardian.

I don’t do fractals or raids so my pursuit of ascended gear is very casual. So far I’ve made Zojja’s Razor and then got another ascended dagger from Teqatl the following night. I’m saving up silk and making damask when I can in order to make an ascended chest eventually. It works for me as an achievable long term goal to keep me interested without being a brick wall that I have to pass in order to play the game how I want.