Guild Wars 2

As we all may know, ANet has informed that there will be at least Ascended weapons in the game.

I don’t think this is a good idea in terms of balance. The damage in the game is already quite high if you spec for it. From Ascended gear, you will get roughly about 10% more stats than you can get from an equivalent exotic type item (with the jewel). What I’m afraid is that there will be more complaining about those backstabs/evicerates/killshots/shatters/burning in the game.

Adding the maximum stats also mean that new players find it even harder to enjoy content like WvW. I see the game is slowly making its progress towards a very balanced state*, some professions have it better than others but I think there will be a day when all professions are quite balanced and good in their own field of actions.

I just wonder why to flip the tables again, the necromancer overbuff caused a bit of havoc and the game is still recovering from that one. It was a good example of how simply adding damage into the game is not solving anything, instead it is causing unbalance.

What I suggest is that they leave the weapons (and armor) to the exotic level, but make it available to add an infusion slot to an exotic item with 5 prestine fractal relics. (We have seen this type of item, the tentacle back piece.) This would add some minor stats for the high flyers but it wouldn’t be so game breaking.

This all should, of course, be done after they invent some more fractals. Personally, what I would like to see is not the regular fractals, just added with more damage. I’d like to have more content like Liadra. Liadra is the step towards a challenging content in GW2 and that is what is missing from the game.

It would be really awesome for the fractals to change after lvl 50 to something that does not need a certain DPS in order to be beatable or being just so tanky that someday you will win.

There is nothing wrong with 10 or even 20 min boss fights, as long as they are challenging and interesting. Phases are the best friends here and I love the idea that you need to do something other than just mash the buttons and dodge every now and then in order to proceed. Brainless button mashing against bosses with 20 million health dodging every red circle is not fun. Why not to make even 10 phases for 1 boss?

Things like others have to stay alive and kite the boss while someone takes on a short jumping puzzle, in order to get into next phase, that will result in an instant death for the jumper if he fails, thus forcing a reset.

In conclusion:

I don’t think adding more ascended gear in the game is right to do, but I would like to see more fractals, not the same usual fractals, but something different that is really challenging content and would reward with weapon/armor skins that are only obtainable by doing this.

I think there are more of us than just I, who liked the feeling after killing the Liadra.

EDIT: edited for the correct approximate value for the stat increase

Yeah, I’m also pretty against the gear treadmill. This and gw1 were the only MMOs I’ve played, and in gw1 it was easy to get get to max level and max armor, just like it is in gw2, with the exception of the ascended gear and the new coming armor/weapons.

They’ve already said that it will be account bound, and you’ll need to have 500 in that crafting discipline. That alone starts to cut out some players, some people don’t like to craft/gather/farm, and now they can’t buy their gear on the tp or have a friend make it for them.

Plus the gear is going to be time gated. I think I know the reason of time gating: this way the overly rich people can’t get all of the new gear in the first hour and have an unfair advantage over the “average” player. But it really hurts people that either 1) have lots of alts and like to switch between them, 2) people who like to try out different builds, 3) screws over most of the player base when they introduce new mechanics that they want you to change your build. (not saying I agree with all of the things I said, just pointing them out. I know alts can still be viable in full exotics. As for the different builds I do like the Queen’s Gauntlet, but it sucks for those that don’t have enough spare money/mats to go try to craft a new set of armor/weapons)

I do agree with you on newer mechanics, I’m only mid-level myself (28 I think) but I recently did a lvl 2 fractal to show it to some of my friends who just made 80, and dang I felt like a god versus those enemies.

My biggest complaint is that the new gear is going to be account bound and time gated (both of which don’t effect me personally, but I don’t like the concept). And 10% isn’t a large increase, but you’re right, it’s large enough to make a difference. I just never want to see a new tier of gear introduced.

(Though I would like if they made new infusions, the stat ones are laughable, they’re getting rid of magic find, we’re swiming in karma, and not many mobs drop gold, and AR is only useful in fractals.) Also, how are they going to handle runes? For trinkets you just lose the jewel slot, which they roll into the baseline (though no more mix and match), but if the new armor/weapons lose their slot how can you do anything with runes and sigils. Er…sorry got sidetracked there.