I think you shoud introduce some normal way of getting ascended armor and weapons in pvp (wvw). Like new ascended vendor that needs new badges or the old ones + laurens or something.
It would be cool if the enemy commander (player) could drop some ascended gear. You will get achivment and a new title `enemy commander eliminator`. There can be like few days cooldown because of posible exploits.
The point is i rly dont like crafting, the most satisfying things in mmos (when we talk about gear) is loot.
Make it hard to get but make it posible by playing how u like.