Months after ascended items have been released, the next update promises an easier route to ascended items for WvW players. However, the idea seems to be giving us access to rings and amulets only. A vast array of players have already earned their rings+amulets via laurel vendors – this provides a great incentive to get players to log in on a daily basis to ‘do the daily’, so great idea on that front. Ascended accessories are also available via laurel vendors too, albeit at a higher price, or via guild commendations (another great way to promote guild activity).
The hardest ascended item to earn thus far is the backpiece. Les us consider the current options for obtaining an ascended backpiece (just stats, skins aside):
Option 1: Fractal Grind
For this you need to get:
- 1,850 fractal relics
- Nominal amount of Crystals or Philosopher’s Stones
- Vial of Condensed Mist Essence.
=> Time requirement to grind out that many relics is well over 25 hours of solid fractal gameplay for someone who hasn’t been doing Fractal runs repeatedly every single day.
Option 2: Large amounts of gold
- 50 globs of ectoplasm (reasonable, not too bad)
- 1 Vial of condensed mist essence (random drop in fractals)
- Crystals/Philosopher’s Stones (40/240 respectively; sure why not?)
- 250 T6 material (I’m sorry, 250? We’re not talking about crafting a legendary here, I just want the stats from a backpiece)
Current market price of the T6 mat I need for the stats I’m looking for would set me back 70 gold. You’re basically paying for the skin more than the item.
Anyone playing WvW significantly will tell you that our money goes straight into upgrades, siege weapons and repairs, you don’t really turn much of a profit in WvW if you’re helping your server by upgrading keeps/towers/camps and laying down siege out of your own pocket.
I appreciate that acquiring ascended items should be a long term goal and rewarding for long hours of gameplay, but what is the reasoning for making ascended backpieces exclusive to fractal runners? Some players, such as myself, have perhaps tried Fractals a few times and thought that it was ok, but we’d rather play WvW/PvP than grind dungeons all day. The day laurel vendors were made was a godsend to WvW players, so we finally had access to this higher tier equipment without having to leave the battlefield.
Why penalise players for wanting to play hours on end in WvW instead of you Fractals dungeon? Fractal players can keep their shiny skins, Mystic Forgers can have their cool looking quiver and/or book, that’s ok, they can keep their exclusive skins of prestige. Why not give an alternative option to WvW players who only want to min/max and don’t care about the skin?
Surely it’s not about who has the most gold or did the most fractal runs, you should be rewarding players for investing time into the game. It’s been made brutally clear to us since launch that PvE is a higher priority than sPvP/WvW, but please give us some options.
Many thanks,
The WvW Community