I do not get why it would be so hard to award this achievement retroactively?
"Apprentice Deconstructor"

Because this comes from deconstructing armor, weapons and glyphs.

So it should be fairly simple award a base amount of deconstructed items based on level in each skill-line blacksmithing, clothing, enchanting and woodworking.

We can make some boad assumptions about leveling, it is not totally unfeasible to level blacksmithing, clothing and woodworking entirely by loot drops that you deconstruct, or trade crafted items with other crafters, but most of us know, the most XP is gaind from deconstruction and not construction.

Enchanting is be leveled by trading glyphs with other enchanters to deconstruct.

So if we look at enchanting, and use optimal deconstruction for maximum XP from fewest glyphs, Gold VR12 glyphs, gives ~10k XP per deconstruction.
That mean that that to get to level 50 you have gathered somewhere around 3,8 million XP!
So that means that under optimum conditions you have "only" deconstructed 3.8 millon XP/10k XP -> ~380 gold VR12 glyphs!

That is very unlikely that any normal player even get to recieve 380 golden VR12 glyphs, so if we look at perhaps doing green VR12 glyphs, we need ~double the amount, so ~760 glyphs!

If yopu look at dropped glyphs, then VR12 gives around 1300-1500 XP or so, gives that just leveling with these kind of glyphs, yields under optimum conditions ~2500 glyphs!!!!


This is best case using the be XP you can from a deconstruct! and we see that just purely levelling Enchanting to level 50 should give you the Master Deconstructer achievement!

I have simplified, but we do the same calculations on creating and deconstructing the be level glyphs you can make at any level, we will get a baseline.
We assume that you will create as many glyphs as you deconstruct, as the best known way to level enchanting is create, trade and deconstruct traded glyphs, and low level glyphs do not give as much XP, and thus requires more deconstructing. And since you will most likely find glyphs as loot, and deconstruct these, aswell, that will only further improve your deconstruct ratio!


This have only covered Enchanting, so based on your enchanting level, you can get starting amount of of deconstructions in this achievement.


And as most can see, being level 50 enchanter, then is most likely that you have deconstructed ATLEAST 1000 glyphs!
But now most enchanters stopped at level 40, then you only have ~2,1 million XP, and so ~210 gold VR12 glyphs or ~410 green VR12 glyphs.



Now, we can do the same calculations with blacksmithing, clothing and woodworking! here many are level 50, and same logik applies, and many crafters have worked in more than one of these crafting skills, so also here we can give some kind of baseline on how many things you likely have deconstructed to reach level 50. And in most cases, I would bet that anyone that reaches 50 in alteast one of these skull lines have deconstructed 1000 items, but to play it safe, give 500 deconstructed for each skill-line that are level 50! so so level 50 reaches the eachievement goal!


I do not understand why this should be so hard think of! and I have to rely on memory and old outdated web-pages to get some figures to work by.
Here we have developers that have access to the actual numbers.



So I do not get why they claim they cannot reward this achievement for actions already done! based on skill level in the relevant skill trees, it should be fairly simple to come up with a number of "likely" deconstructs that have been done to reach that level. and it seems plausible that you will spend a similiar amount of deconstructs to go from level 20-30 as you will do from level 40-50! assuming you create items if highest level and you have decronstructed "everything" you loot.

I have for instance a character that is level 50 in blacksmithing, clothing and woodworking, and then level 41 in enchanting. I am 100% sure that I have deconstructed WELL over 1000 items!