I have over 1200 of those things now. I would gladly trade like 100 of them for juts 5 of any material I want. Over 400 weapon shards now, but at least those can transfer between characters because they're not class specific.

But yeah, they need to fix the material farming. I'm out of everything right now and I have an item I'm upgrading for every type of material, too. I actually have MORE Ascendant energy than I do any of the stupid blooms or irons or metals or whatever.