Guild Wars 2

I don’t know if it’s me making wrong calculations, but it seems to me that ascended gear are not always the better option for certain builds.

The lack of optional trinket jewel choice on Ascended make them locked in certain stats that may not be the best for your build.

My concern is specially on the lack of Valkyrie – Valkyrie gear. Why are there no Ascended Valkyrie – Valkyrie?

EG.
Only trinkets are manipulated.

With all exotic trinkets I can get:

Power: 508
Prec: 219
Crit dmg%: 35
Toughness: 16
Vitality: 127

But with Ascended:

Power: 500
Prec: 336
Crit dmg%: 36
Toughness: 0
Vitality: 0

Sure, you get more precision but 127 less vitality (that’s ca. 1200 difference in health!)

I could use Soldier – Soldier ascended rings.:

Power: 500
Prec: 200
Crit dmg%: 20
Toughness: 136
Vitality: 136

Now I have almost the same vitality as exotics but my crit dmg fell with 15%!

My point is that your build options are limited and build diversity is harder to obtain.

All ascended gear is aimed for fractals, it makes no sense why anyone would run defensive or vitality builds. Fractals get so tough to the point where it doesn’t matter how much health you have, you have to pay for your mistakes.

A lot of the fractal enemies abilities and agony as well scales by your health, so having more health would only make it harder for you to use self healing.