They need to have a way to make ascendant shards and energy convertable into eachother like how you use radiants wiyh eris. They also need to make it so that you can combine like 10+ of these into the next higher teir. So 10 ascendant shards plus 2500 glimmer=1 radiant shard.
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I like the idea of trading ascendant energy for shards and vice versa but not using them to obtain radiant material. If they allowed ascendant to radiant conversion people would just blow through VOG normal sooo easily at higher levels to amass radiant mats. IMO it makes sense that you have to run the raid you acquired the armor from to level them up.