Guild Wars 2

Brief backstory: Played the hell out of this game at launch, got a Mesmer to 80, played some alts, lost interest around the time Fractals and Ascended gear came out. I’ve returned many times, but I always either leveled alts, did PvP, or ran dungeons. I have no ascended gear, and in fact just ran my first ever fractal yesterday because it was part of the daily. I’ve got four 80s, and I think I’m going to stick with PvP on my Mesmer.

So, I think I want my Guardian to be my “PvE main,” and thus I want to deck her out in Ascended. She’s got full exotics now so I can definitely do most content, but the issue is I don’t know what content to do.

First things first, she’s a 447 Armorsmith, I’ve run out crafting mats, and have 35g and 2 laurels to my name. Where and how should I go about either farming the mats or the money needed to get her the rest of the way there?

Once I get to 500, then what? Should I just buy Ascended recipes as I can afford them? I notice as of the update that you can change Ascended gear stats by crafting the appropriate insignia – should I mess with that, or just straight-up craft what I want?

As for gear itself – Berserker’s seems to be the best for pretty much every class, but I don’t want to be a straight-up DPS Guardian – I was thinking I could go something tankier/supporty with a focus on burning. Liking Mace/Torch + Hammer with a Radiance/Virtues/Honor build, but I’m still tweaking traits. I’ve got Zerker exotics now but should I stick with that for Ascended?

tl;dr I’m a poor 447 armorsmith Guardian who’s run out of t6 mats, where/how do I farm mats/money to hit 500? And once I do, what’s the best way to go about making a full set of Ascended?

Silverwaste chest farm is good for mats and gold. Thats what I do when I’m not bored. Kinda get reptitive after couple of runs. And if you run fractals regularly and get lots of ascended boxes, you can change the stats using the mystic forge. It costs 5 ectos, 10 spirit shards, exotic insignia (eg:berzerker’s) and the ascended piece if I’m not wrong. Hope that helps. I’m kinda new too

Not exactly what you’re asking.. but my advice would be to get an Ascended weapon before you start working on Ascended armour. The difference the weapon provides will be more noticeable.

Generally its better to start with Ascended Weapons before Armor as you get a higher intial stat boost from weapons. I think Ascended is only like a 5% overall buff over Exotic so it’s not essential unless you want to run higher level Fractals (lvl 10+) where you’ll need the infusion slots for Agony Resistance.

If you haven’t started Weaponsmithing yet it would probably be cheaper just to finish up Armorsmithing which is almost done. Either way it’s going to be expensive. For me crafting a single Ascended piece of equipment typically costs around ~60g depending on what mats you have on hand. If you have extra Ascended gear through chests changing stats through the Mystic Forge is actually pretty cheap ~10g if you buy all the mats off the TP. Crafting the insignias yourself will save you about 30% over buying it off the TP.

As for gear Berserkers is still the go to DPS power set for dungeons. I’m not sure if Condi is now a viable option after the recent patch. If you want a more tanky alternative you can try Knights (Toughness/Power/Precision) or maybe Soldiers (Power/Vitality/Toughness), but there will be a noticable drop in your dps. I use Ascended Knights+Hoelbrak on my Guard which works pretty well for open world/WvW. It’s still good to keep a Berserker set for Dungeons even if its only Exotic.

I actually JUST created my first piece of ascended armor last night (Leatherworking). However, before you can bother crafting ascended you need to get 500. If you add me in-game, I can prolly give you a hand.

I actually didn’t even think about Ascended weapons… are those available any way besides crafting them yourself? I don’t mind leveling weaponsmithing, but I don’t really want to grind it up or spend money on it right now.

First things first, I’m dirt poor, so I think I’ll hit up Silverwastes and see what I can loot.

If you don’t want to craft them your only real option is to get lucky with Ascended chests. They are pretty rare so I wouldn’t bank too much on getting one if you’re farming for them. I’ve only gotten them 3 times (2x Teq and 1x WvW) and thats over 1-2 years of casual play. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_chest

For now it’s probably better to just save up and when you have enough gold/mats you can craft them later if you still want them. Ascended chests are a possible (very rare) drop from the Lost Bandit Chests in the Silverwastes so you might get lucky. If the stat prefix is wrong you can use the Mystic Forge and change the stat to whatever you need.

IceTwenty,

I would not even worry about ascended weapons or armor – just stick with exotics for now. Instead you should focus on getting ascended trinkets. Save your pristine fractal relics to buy ascended trinkets from the merchant in the Mistlock Observatory (the fractal lobby area). Then use your normal fractal relics to buy the versatile simple agony infusions (+5 AR). If you max out your trinkets, you will have a total of +30 AR, which will allow you to complete fractals up to lvl 29. Once you reach lvl 20 fractal, the materials for Infusing your rings drop with more frequency and you will get infused ascended ring drops just by completing a fractal. In addition, your chance of getting an ascended weapon or armor chest increases significantly too.

One more thing – save all those +1 AR drops, you need 512 to make a +10 AR infusion which will come in handy once you reach level 30 fractals. You can put those on infused rings and an infused backpiece. With just the trinkets and backpiece, I have a total of +60 AR. Then I have two ascended pieces of armor with +5 AR each for a total of 70 (which is all you need). I do not put AR on my weapons because I switch weapons around too much.

Did anyone mention http://gw2crafts.net/ ?

They have crafting guides, including guides for the 400-500 push in each profession.
Good way to plan.

If you’re that poor I wouldn’t worry about ascended. Not only is it expensive but because of downleveling, the ascended gear you make is only as good as exotics in maps below 80. But if you are going to craft, I also recommend weapons first. You get more of a stat boost with the weapons.