Guild Wars 2

I’ve been spending most of my crafting mats lately on leveling my armorsmith and weaponsmith, on my way to outfitting my warrior in ascended gear. However, I’m definitely going to want an ascended bow and possibly torch, and my huntsman never got above 100. Would it be feasible to finish the collection for the dragonhunter bow (and berserker torch) instead of leveling the huntsman?

A collection seems like it would be more interesting than grinding out the money for crafting mats, and I’d like to keep exploring the new maps. (Also hoping for black diamond drops so I can convert that gear to viper’s.) But I’d probably get more achievement points crafting, and I’m looking forward to that next AP chest…

Thoughts?

PS – What about fractal drops? If I get a weapon chest, will I be able to choose a weapon or get stuck with whatever drops? Most discussions of ascended drops seem to be about armor…

Fractal drops are random, so most people can’t rely on them to fully outfit characters. Working on the elite-specific weapon is a fine idea for ascended, since it’s also (a) an achievement and (b) a coveted skin for some people.

At some point, it’s useful to have all the crafting disciplines maxed out, but since most folks can get by with exotic armor, I don’t think it needs to be a priority.

Weapon chests give you a specific stat, but you can easily change it to what you want in the mystic forge. Hold on to any random ascended drops you wind up getting, you’ll find a use for it sooner or later.

Weapon chests from Fractals comes is currently at 4-5% drop rate. So while not exactly non-existent I wouldn’t say solely relying on a box drop is a good idea. Granted in a decent group it only takes about 15 minutes or so to clear 3 swamps to get get the Champion daily box. Weapon boxes adhere to a specific stat, but you are free to select the specific weapon you want. Even if the box you get isn’t of the stat you want, you can choose the desired weapon and used the Ascended transmutation recipe in the Mystic Forge (which does not require any level in crafting) to change the weapon to the stats you want.

Now for the fun part: the specializations. All of them follow the same formula:

1. Unlock the class’s Elite Spec (30 Hero Points)
2. Kill a particular creature for its unique Exotic drop (RNG based) or Slay a boss for its unique drop (guaranteed)
3. Buy an item from a Specific vendor (heart or end-of-chain vendors)
4. Create/buy Mystic Weapon (~20g)
5. Kill a second particular creature for its unique Exotic drop (RNG Based)
6. Buy your Class’s Specialization Inscription (50 Crystalline Ore)
7. Earn Silver Rank in a specific Adventure
8. Stealth Glide on the character (requires Tier 4 master in Gliding)
9. Buy a specific item from Nuhoch vendor (300 Airship parts + 15.36 silver)
10. Mine a Aruic Sharpening Stone (requires tier 5 in Exalted Mastery)
11. Collect your class’s Invisible Mushroom Spore (can be RNG based and requires tier 4 in Nuhoch Mastery)
12. Fully unlock your class’s Spec (250 Hero Points)
13. 100% map clear 1 of the 4 maps in Magus falls with your class.
14. Unlock the Machine variation of your Weapon (subcollection needing up to 400 of each map currency, 3 reclaimed plates, oiled component, and looted component from Noxious Pods).

Since you’re wanting both the Torch and Longbow you would need to fulfil the above list for both the Berserker and Dragonhunter classes. Collection items 8,10, 11 essentially only need to be unlocked once since masteries are shared across characters.

From experience, I can tell you it’ll be a whole lot faster just grinding for gold to make your Ascended weapons if that’s all you’re wanting. I was going for Nevermore at the time, so I was able to simultaneous work on that Legendary as well as completing the objectives for the Spec weapons. Ultimately, your decision should be based on what you want to do long term.

jesus, how long did that take?

I’ve gotten two ascended weapons from doing Tequatl every day. He drops a ton of karma and loot each and every day, and he is pretty fun to slay as well.

Nefariis.4135:

jesus, how long did that take?

It really depends on what you already have unlocked.

If you cleared most of Tyrian maps unlocking your Elite Specs takes a few minutes or maybe an hour or so if you don’t have map much completion. Though You can simultaneously work towards 100% while shooting for HP Challenges.

If you have 0 masteries unlocked….good luck. Though you can combine your Dragon Stand grinding with Mastery XP grinding. A lot of the mobs there grant XP so overdosing on XP boosters lets you level up extremely fast in that map if you have decent Commanders. With decent Commanders you can get in and out of that map in about 1hr 15m with 30-35 Crystalline ore on average. Note that you have to complete the Mordy meta to unlock all the pods with the exception of the 1-3 pods per lane that sometimes show up during the lane events.

For map currency, you want to land about 30 minutes or so before the big Metas so you can build up enough participation % for map rewards. Also look for taxi’s on LFG since they tend to have better tiered map which leads to better rewards. Though, you’re still looking to spend a few hours here per map unless you get good drops from the Hunting bags loots.

The exotic drops? Completely RNG. I spend about 2 minutes on my fastest collection and over an hour on my worst one.

The two adventures required for the Torch and Bow aren’t too bad and can be completed with Silver rank within a few tries.

There’s not a finite hourly measure I can throw at this since I don’t know what OP already has unlocked, and some of those stuff is annoyingly RNG based. At the very least you’re looking at spending a few weekends grinding this stuff out if you’re starting at 0 for anything in the list above. Though once you get your first weapon the next weapons start to fly in much much faster since at that point you’re just grinding map currency for the most part. For me after I got my first weapon I was at 10/14 or 11/14 for the other 8 weapons.