Guild Wars 2

Jasher.6580:

I completely agree with the OP. They should have gone the sPvP route where all the stat sets are available to you for free with ugly skins and then we get to farm skins thereafter. That way we wont be at a statistical disadvantage and we will be encouraged to farm cool looking armour.

They have item transmutes available on the store to change the appearance of any item to another.

I love the way they did sPvP, I just don’t think that should translate into PvE.

Chronologist.9782:

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I already have 2 sets of the “best gear”, but as I’ve repeated many times before, this isn’t about me.

I’m not worried.

I came into this expecting and understanding that I would still have to do a “little” work to get my full exotic set at lvl 80. I like and appreciate that fact – the same way I like and appreciate that I’ll have to grind it all over again if i want to change my spec from Power and +Precision to +Condition and +Toughness/Vitality.

This game did not promise to hand you an even playing field instantly upon dinging 80 or upon queuing WvW. It promised that the “Gear plateau” you are referring to, where all players are created equal, would be much more easily reached and widely accessible to casual players. It is. A gear set that takes 2-3 days or even a week worth of grinding is perfectly reasonable and attainable. It is dwarfed by the grind in games like WoW where you would have to grind BG’s for months or engage in regular team-trading to get your rating up high enough to even qualify for purchasing the latest and greatest PvP gear (which had another layer of uselessness; not as good for PvE regardless of talent spec). And, unlike GW 2, that gear was constantly being phased out and made obsolete by the next best set for people to grind towards.

The strengths of GW 2’s WvW and PvE gear system as it stands are simple, accessible, and fine just the way they are.

1) can ding 80 in just a few weeks of casual play
2) can get the best exotic gear available within a few days or a week’s worth of casual grinding
3) Build types such as Power and Precision damage specs are just as useful in PvP as in PvE situations, thanks to the absence of systems like Resilience and Defense which were deliberately created to make the grind that much longer to obtain viable sets.

I think the damage in WvW for exotics should be severely lowered. 1 person shouldn’t be powerful enough to kill 4 people. I have no problem with the gear costing time and gold but the power of them makes people who want to play WvW and not just zerg with everyone else a huge problem.