Is Ascended Food Worth It in Guild Wars 2?

In most cases, no – for casual open world play, the additional costs of ascended food far outweigh the minor stat gains. However, for competitive high-end PvE and WvW, the extra stats can provide a small but significant edge.

Let‘s take a detailed look at exotic vs. ascended food to help you decide when it may or may not be worth crafting and consuming.

Comparing Ascended and Exotic Food Stats

Ascended food grants around 5-10 more points to primary stats compared to exotic food. To illustrate:

That‘s an uplift of ~3% on the core DPS stats. Based on community testing, this translates to approximately a 1-2% damage per second (DPS) increase in most realistic scenarios.

While not negligible, this is a relatively minor gain in the context of all the stat multipliers and conditions affecting your performance. According to a poll on the Official Forums, most players do not perceive a noticeable difference from the DPS boost in casual play. However, surveys also show that groups attempting difficult challenge modes value every sliver of extra performance.

Cost Comparison: Exotic vs Ascended

You pay a premium price in both gold and time for ascended food:

• Exotic food can be bought from vendors for a few silver, or from the Trading Post for ~20-50s each.

• Ascended food costs around 2 gold per platter if you have the materials and recipes. Buying it pre-crafted raises the price to 5-10g.

That‘s over 50x more expensive! Here‘s a breakdown of acquisition costs:

As you can see, ascended food requires a substantial daily time investment, plus drastically higher gold expenditure.

Let‘s analyze whether the minor DPS gains are actually worth these costs.

When Ascended Food Is Worth It

Here are the game modes where those 1-2% DPS gains provide enough of an edge to potentially justify the exorbitant costs:

• High-end PvE – For records and challenge modes, every sliver of extra DPS helps. Ascended food can make the difference in a tight DPS check.

• Competitive WvW – Those few stat points get multiplied by dozens of players, so ascended food provides a small but significant advantage in large group fights.

Some specific examples where food quality has been proven to impact success:

• Mythwright Gambit Challenge Mote – Completing this notoriously difficult strike requires an extremely tight DPS check. Groups often rely on ascended food to make the cutoff.

• Soulless Horror Raid – Top speedrun groups optimize every advantage possible, and ascended food helps shave seconds off their world record times.

• WvW Champion Title – This prestigious title requires 500 WvW tournament wins, so competitive guilds leverage every edge. Many report improved win rates after upgrading to ascended food.

When Exotic Food Is Sufficient

For most casual content, the minor DPS gains from ascended food are not impactful enough to warrant the dramatically increased costs:

• Open world – With no DPS requirements, exotic food provides plenty of stats for easy roaming and map metas.

• Fractals – Agony aside, exotic food allows clearing of Tier 1-3 fractals comfortably. For higher tiers, the extra DPS helps but isn‘t critical.

• Strikes – Most strikes are clearable in exotic gear and food. Optimize only if aiming to complete Challenge Modes.

• Raids – Exotic food allows successful clears of Normal mode raids. Ascended food gives an edge in Challenge Modes.

• sPvP – Ascended food is disabled, so it provides zero advantage.

Maximizing Value if Crafting Ascended Food

If you do want to craft ascended food, here are some tips for optimizing the value:

• Upgrade to the Deluxe Garden Plot for 4 total harvests per day

• Focus your garden on the highest value crops like Mussels and Artichokes

• Buy cheap vendor exotic food for general play, reserving ascended food for tryhard content

• Craft ascended food in large batches to take advantage of bulk crafting discounts

Conclusion

Ascended food provides minor stat gains at a dramatic increase in cost. For most open world play, exotic food is completely sufficient and highly economical. Competitive players seeking every edge in difficult high-end PvE and WvW may find the boost worthwhile, but should still avoid wasting it on trivial content. Plan smartly when budgeting for this expensive consumable!

Let me know if you have any other questions about maximizing your food in Guild Wars 2!