Many players including myself are overwhelm by the huge supply of ascended materials, mostly ascended shards. I find that ascended shards are not as useful to the players who are seeking the full raid gear. They have been replaced by Radiant materials and are no longer required to upgrade exotic gear. What are their purpose? To only upgrade the lesser legendary gear that will only quickly get replaced by an exotic or raid gear. Radiant materials are obtain by doing the raid, but you only get rewarded once a week per character. I have only one high enough character that can manage to do the raid without getting killed by one hit. You can get radiant materials from the new vendor, but you need to trade radiant energy for shards and vice versa. This is utterly frustrating due to the fact that you only get materials once a week and you don't even get enough. I suggest we put these ascended materials and energy to use, and have an exchange with the cost of some glimmer, or just have it be sold instead of exchanging radiants.