Guild Wars 2

An I missing something here? I’m grinding away for laurels to get ascended gear and I start to look more closely at the stats. Compared to the exotic trinkets I already have with upgrades, ascended gear is only a tiny, tiny bit better. Comparing rings it’s 11 more points of power, 2% more crit, 5 more precision. That’s nothing. Far worse of a boost than the cheapest food. Okay, I thought, it must be the infusion slot. But that’s only 5 more points, plus %1 boost to lord dam? What an I missing? A month of grinding for one ring that’s only SLIGHTLY better hardly seems worth it. Is it the cumulative effect? All ascended gear and you start to feel the difference? Hmmm….. Call me a noob’s noob but it seems like I’m missing something. Can you use other upgrades in the infusion slots?

You are kind of right, for a single ascended ring. Now add a second ring, two accessories , an amulet and a back piece. 2% more crit damage quickly becomes 17%. So yeah a single one isn’t really that much, but full ascended gear makes a difference.

Here are the totals for berserker trinkets, exotic vs. ascended:

Exotic:
+508 power
+346 precision
+36% crit damage

Ascended:
+570 power
+376 Precision
+53% crit damage

It’s not a huge difference but it will make a difference.

As Gator said, when you add them all together, it does make a noticeable difference. If your goal in a game is to make sure you’re decked out with the most powerful gear that game can provide, Ascended gear is the way to go.

That said, Ascended gear isn’t required for anything other than Fractals 20+. You can get by with just Exotics (or even Rares or Masterworks) for anything else. So, if you’re not a hardcore Fractals runner or all that bothered about stats, feel free to spend your Laurels on something else. Personally? I find exchanging my Laurels for 10 Unid’ed dyes or the Heavy Crafting Bags to be quite profitable.

I thought much the same as the OP for a long time.

I had been collecting laurels from dailies and monthlies since they were introduced, and could not justify using them on consumables. I had around 160 of them when I decided to look more closely at the ascended items. I rarely do fractals, so this was really the only way to acquire these.

When I added up the combined stats from 5 items, it made more sense to me to use the laurels for these. I had enough on hand to immediately get an amulet, 2 accessories and 1 ring for my guardian. This made a pretty big difference. I just got the other ring after finishing my June monthly, so the set is complete, apart from the back-piece.