Since House of Wolves came out, it seems the need for (and provisioning of) Ascendant materials is all but removed.
All of the Legendary equipment I see on offering from the various class and faction vendors don't have the multi-step Damage and Defense upgrades which would normally require those materials. Additionally, the usual sources of Ascendant materials (legendary engrams, loot screens) appear to have gone away as well.
However, I still have some old equipment that wasn't fully upgraded yet. Rather than buy new equipment to replace it, I'd like to just top it all off. How do I go about doing that properly?
Do I still need to do the multi-step Damage/Defense upgrades for my old gear, or can I just directly Ascend them to their max stats when I get the Etheric Light and other resources needed?
Best Answer
My teammate last night had a couple of exotic shards sitting around and tested this. He Ascended two exotic weapons: one fully upgraded and one not. The weapon that wasn't fully upgraded did not have its damage upgrade nodes unlocked automatically after the Ascend, so it looks like you still need to fully upgrade the weapon to maximize its potential. Granted, this test was with Exotic equipment, legendaries may be different.
I think this Ascend feature was less for maxing out incomplete equipment, and more for upgrading maxed out equipment from the pre DLC 1 days. Case in point, I have a Vision of Confluence from the Vault of Glass that was awesome until the first DLC launched with higher damage weapons. With the Ascend feature, this weapon becomes useful again.