Guild Wars 2

With the time gate on Ascended materials and the cost of materials, it would take insanely too long and very expensive to craft multiple sets of armor and weapons for the different builds used in PvE, WvW, Fractals, and PvP. That’s why I purpose that we are allowed to switch stats. Similar to how Ledgendaries are allowed but not with all the different stat types. You would have to craft the item with a stat type and either through crafting again or more likely the Mystic Forge you are able to combine the Ascended piece with an inscription or insignia of the other stat you want. I am thinking having a limit that you could only do it once or twice and have two or three stat types to choose from on a single piece.

Eh, I don’t see why there should be a limit on the number of times you can do it.

Heck, I’d argue either make it “free” to trade stats (at a vendor for example) or cost a very small fee ~1g. per item. It makes the grind (slightly) more bearable, and whenever they come out with legendary armor it will have the added bonus of being able to switch “on the fly”.

Heck I’d say the same for ascended weapons/trinkets. They need to make the game more friendly to trying out different builds (and also alts but the above won’t help for them).

You will be allowed to switch stats when you have Legendary armor.

As Smooth Penguin said, switching stats is reserved for legendaries.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

You will be allowed to switch stats when you have Legendary armor.

You may think its okay to have to spend 30ish days (along with all of the other associated costs) to get a new set of ascended armor (and longer to replace all of the other ascended gear) if you wish to try a new build, gear a new character, have multiple sets for different activities, or have a patch “nerf” your current build so you have to use something else, but most of us see that as completely unreasonable in a game that was sold to as a focus on horizontal progression and making it easy/quick to level and gear up any character.

Yeah….I have to agree that this feature would devalue one of the few things that even comes close to making me consider going after a Legendary…..

Even if they considered this, it would need to be much more costly & cumbersome a process than the current Legendary change process (to maintain some disparity between them).

IDEA: MF Recipe – Ascended item and 3 Exotic of same item ALL with same stats you want to change to.

Wallace MacBix.2089:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

You will be allowed to switch stats when you have Legendary armor.

You may think its okay to have to spend 30ish days (along with all of the other associated costs) to get a new set of ascended armor (and longer to replace all of the other ascended gear) if you wish to try a new build, gear a new character, have multiple sets for different activities, or have a patch “nerf” your current build so you have to use something else, but most of us see that as completely unreasonable in a game that was sold to as a focus on horizontal progression and making it easy/quick to level and gear up any character.

If you want to experiment with different builds, you shouldn’t be doing it with the most expensive gear. Use Rares or Exotics if you want to run different builds. BiS gear is gated, and thus takes more effort to obtain.

Now as for build nerfs or rebalancing, I hear your complaint. Buying expensive gear to use for that one specific build, and then having to change, can be a valid complaint. BUT… on the flip side, the gear can still be used. The stat combos, while not what you’d prefer in a different build, is still top of the line.

Anet rebalances all the time. In GW1, certain metas forced Anet to rebalance, because certain niche metas were really over powered. My 55 Monk was destroyed, because of Ecto farming in the Underworld.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

If you want to experiment with different builds, you shouldn’t be doing it with the most expensive gear. Use Rares or Exotics if you want to run different builds. BiS gear is gated, and thus takes more effort to obtain.

Why should BiS gear be gated? What reason is there other than to separate the community? Before anything ascended came out exotic was the BiS. If you wanted to get exotic gear it was “easy”, you could:

1) Craft
2) Dungeon tokens
3) MF rares
4) Buy it off the tp
5) Get it from a drop

You can only (reliably) get ascended gear from time gated options

Trinkets (combination of Laurels, guild commendations, daily fractal rewards)
Weapons/Armor (time gated crafting)

And as many others have pointed out in other threads with you, they don’t feel that there is any effort in time gated mats. Ascended weapons/armor are only as expensive as it is, because they needed to find a way to sink gold (same with the AR infusions). If ascended weapons/armor were say 1/10th or less as what they are now I don’t think I’d be complaining.

Now as for build nerfs or rebalancing, I hear your complaint. Buying expensive gear to use for that one specific build, and then having to change, can be a valid complaint. BUT… on the flip side, the gear can still be used. The stat combos, while not what you’d prefer in a different build, is still top of the line.

I tried to use this argument (or at least a variation of it) when ascended weapons first came out. On day one I got a cleric weapon box, and was excited/happy (and it has been the only one I’ve received and only one of <6 that I’ve seen drop for people). Someone at the time was complaining saying that they’d rather have the weapon drop and let them choose the stats. I was saying I’d rather have stats I didn’t want than a weapon I “couldn’t” use. I did the math, my ascended cleric bow (which I’m still using) does 5% less damage than an exotic level zerker bow.

So lets say you use conditions and you have to switch to a power build. You are better off using an exotic power weapon than your ascended condition weapon. So, no, a nerf/balance change can make your gear not top of the line.

Anet rebalances all the time. In GW1, certain metas forced Anet to rebalance, because certain niche metas were really over powered. My 55 Monk was destroyed, because of Ecto farming in the Underworld.

I’m happy they balance the game, I’m just pointing out that the insane grind to get a full set of gear (the ~150 laurels, and all of the mats) can be “useless” and there is no way to make up for that. Also to compare to gw1, there you could get the BiS gear in what, 1 week for a fresh lvl 1 character? 2-3 days (or less) if you wanted a spare set with different runes/insignias. That is what a good number of people are asking for here. I’d rather do what I want to, than grind out gold/mats to craft some gear.

Honestly, right now I’d be happy if they lowered ascended stats down to exotic. And removed all non-AR and utility infusions from the game. Ascended gear started as something for fractals, if it returned to that, I wouldn’t complain. Bring back easily obtained BiS gear and only horizontal progression.

Edit: Also why should casuals feel the brunt of this? They are the ones who most struggle to get the gold for ascended crafting. Someone who doesn’t get that much time to play should not be at a disadvantage versus someone who has the time to grind gold/mats (besides having more time to hone their skill in the game).

And you saw how quickly the population fully gear themselves in Exotics, and ran out of end game? Anet even admitted that they underestimated how quickly people would be getting all Exotic gear. This is probably one of the reasons behind the time gates now.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

And you saw how quickly the population fully gear themselves in Exotics, and ran out of end game? Anet even admitted that they underestimated how quickly people would be getting all Exotic gear. This is probably one of the reasons behind the time gates now.

That was, and still is, the stupidest thing I have ever heard for why they put in ascended gear tier. They had the gear grind in mind well before they launched the game. They chose to lie to the Guild Wars 1 player base to get a decent population to start then roll out this sorry excuse.

You would have to be pretty thick headed to believe that “reason”.

“Our whole game is end game!!!”. Fast forward 3 months after launch. “Our players are running out of end game too quickly!! Have to make a new set of gear with better stats so they have something to do!!”.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

And you saw how quickly the population fully gear themselves in Exotics, and ran out of end game? Anet even admitted that they underestimated how quickly people would be getting all Exotic gear. This is probably one of the reasons behind the time gates now.

This is exactly true and what I was about to post. BiS gear should be fairly difficult to obtain which gives the sense of accomplishment. If ascended was in the game at launch the backlash would be much smaller.

Adding a grind without adding anything interesting to grind on is not an endgame. The “endgame” is still all the same grinding kitten that people were doing before. No one is coming back to the game to up their stats by a small amount to continue doing the same content that was in the game a year ago. At least, the dead guilds in my guild list remain dead.

LEGENDARY ARMOR will let you change stats whenever your want! DONT WORRY its coming soon!

Brother Grimm.5176:

Yeah….I have to agree that this feature would devalue one of the few things that even comes close to making me consider going after a Legendary…..

Even if they considered this, it would need to be much more costly & cumbersome a process than the current Legendary change process (to maintain some disparity between them).

IDEA: MF Recipe – Ascended item and 3 Exotic of same item ALL with same stats you want to change to.

at current prices that would cost 1.5g LOL haha not a good idea buddy!

VidGhost.3215:

LEGENDARY ARMOR will let you change stats whenever your want! DONT WORRY its coming soon!

At least half a year away.

Lets hope legendary armor isn’t as fugly as ascended armor. It had better be so amazingly beautiful it makes my eyes bleed rainbows.

Nikkinella.8254:

Lets hope legendary armor isn’t as fugly as ascended armor. It had better be so amazingly beautiful it makes my eyes bleed rainbows.

Hey! It would match my bifrost!

:D

What we’ll be seeing is more and more people sticking to one build because they won’t want to grind out another set of gear. Imagine the rage when that one build is made obsolete by nerfs or new skills.

So Anet will have turned a very positive thing (addition of new skills) into a possibly very negative thing (can’t use new builds because of gear lock-in).