Ascended Gear and Runes

Ascended Gear and Runes

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Posted by: killahmayne.9518

killahmayne.9518

You can skip most of this text and go to the main point to the 7th paragraph if you don’t want to read the background.

So you finally have gotten your full set of Ascended Armor for your Mesmer. You probably spent 500-600 gold and 2 months of grinding dungeons, world boss train or w/e. Or if you did it in a month probably grinded for 6 hours a day.

You are really happy, and go ahead and out fit your armor with some traveler runes for extra mobility as Mesmer’s do not have huge access to swiftness.

A month later, you kind of get bored of your mesmer and want to play one of your other level 80 classes, perhaps an Elementalist because hey why not, the ascended gear that you have is transferable and usable by any light armoured class.

However, you realize that traveler runes probably aren’t the best runes for an Elementalist because they have alot of access to swiftness. You want something maybe like Hoelbrak for the extra damage. Cringing at the thought of replacing your 50 gold rune set for Hoelbrak, you reluctantly do so because you want to have the best experience with your Elementalist as possible.

However after a week or so, you kind of realize that the Elementalist isn’t really your class or you get kind of bored and want to go back to your mesmer. However, you don’t have the funds to replace your Hoelbrak runes for Travelers. So you grind dungeons and WBT for the next few days and finally you are able to come up with the money. You again cringe at the fact that this time, you are replacing a 60-70 gold rune set, but do it anyway because you really need the swiftness. It is then it actually hits you. You just pretty much wasted 120 gold for nothing, I could of at least got some nice skins or even 1 or 2 ascended weapons.

I’m sure we’ve all been in that position before, switching between classes but not having the desired runes, including myself. I have three ascended sets. Two heavy and one light. I got two heavy because I didn’t want to replace runes all the time, between a roaming build and a zergbusting/GvG build.

ANet has already made ascended gear transferable so we can have a better experience with other classes we may choose to tryout. However, that experience is incomplete and somewhat frustrating when you don’t have the runes that you want.

My suggestion is, once you have bought the runes and put it in your gear, allow the option to switch to those runes anytime that you want. For example, I have traveler runes on my light ascended armor, but for my Necro I want perplexity. I can simply buy the perplexity, equip it in my gear knowing I can switch back to travelers if I ever want to play on my Mesmer without unnecessarily spending the money to do so. For ascended weapons it isn’t so bad, but to make it consistent this should also be done for ascended weapons and legendaries

Mace/Greatsword Video (Sept Patch)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoAjKtD6MLY

(edited by killahmayne.9518)

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Posted by: dekou.6012

dekou.6012

But that would encourage experimentation and build variety.

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Posted by: pdavis.8031

pdavis.8031

I thought thats what the upgrade extractor was for? While I agree that ascended and legendary weapons and armor should have this ability, and have spoken for it in another similar thread about legendaries and sigils, I believe Anets response to that issue was the upgrade extractor. Hopefully they change that, and just make them unlockable, like skins and the wardrobe, and even require transmutation charges in order to change them, or just make a permenent upgrade extractor. As of now, it’s 1350 gems for 6 to change out 1 set on your armor, which is WAY to expensive IMO.

“You know what the chain of command is?
It’s the chain I beat you with until you
recognize my command!”

(edited by pdavis.8031)

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Posted by: Otokomae.9356

Otokomae.9356

Yeah… you were supposed to have gotten all the “alt-character” fun out of your system back in 2012. The game was promoted as “alt-friendly” back at release, and to be fair, it really was. That changed in 2013, however, and I don’t know if there’s any going back, to be honest.

Bakuon/Bakuon Thief [MAS]/ ex-[ATac]

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Posted by: dekou.6012

dekou.6012

I thought thats what the upgrade extractor was for?

Even if you buy the 25-pack of upgrade extractors for 5K gems, each extractor will cost around 30 gold with the current exchange ratio. Buying new runes is cheaper.

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Posted by: pdavis.8031

pdavis.8031

I thought thats what the upgrade extractor was for?

Even if you buy the 25-pack of upgrade extractors for 5K gems, each extractor will cost around 30 gold with the current exchange ratio. Buying new runes is cheaper.

Yes I get that, and said that it was WAY too expensive, thus not really a viable option. Either Anet changes it from being charges, to being more like the salvage-o-matics, or reduce the price dramatically, brining it more in-line with transmutation charges. Perhaps even grant them as they would transmutation charges (via pvp, map completion, daily/monthly chests ect.) because as of now, I don’t see them being a very popular item on the gem store.

“You know what the chain of command is?
It’s the chain I beat you with until you
recognize my command!”

(edited by pdavis.8031)

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Posted by: dekou.6012

dekou.6012

I thought thats what the upgrade extractor was for?

Even if you buy the 25-pack of upgrade extractors for 5K gems, each extractor will cost around 30 gold with the current exchange ratio. Buying new runes is cheaper.

Yes I get that, and said that it was WAY too expensive, thus not really a viable option. Either Anet changes it from being charges, to being more like the salvage-o-matics, or reduce the price dramatically, brining it more in-line with transmutation charges. Perhaps even grant them as they would transmutation charges (via pvp, map completion, daily/monthly chests ect.) because as of now, I don’t see them being a very popular item on the gem store.

The problem with that is that currently GW2 seems very anti-alt. And I include both alt characters and alt specs in that description. It looks like a deliberate choice rather than something that just happened, because one doesn’t price an item that would allow four semi-respecs 60$ by accident. If you want a spec, you’ve got to grind to get it at its best. That’s progression in GW2. Exotics are there for those who don’t care about maxing their performance.

Basically, you can’t remove grind from Ascended gear, because grind is what Ascended gear is all about. It’s working as intended. And yes, I’m a bit bitter about it.

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Posted by: killahmayne.9518

killahmayne.9518

I hope ANet realizes that Upgrade Extractors are not a solution for this, or at the very least a very poor one.

My main point is that if ANet changes Ascended Gear to be account bound to encourage playing on alternate characters, why not allow us to switch between runes that we have previously bought for that particular ascended set?

If they are worried about ruining the economy I hardly think that is a problem. I haven’t taken a survey but I would imagine most people would NOT spend 120 gold to switch to a rune set and back.

Most people would rather just do dungeons or buy an exotic set of gear and put the runes in there, as spending that much gold doesn’t justify the stat increases just for wanting to switch runes. It just seems very unnecessary to me, having to either run ascended gear with suboptimal runes or running exotic gear just to have the runes I want.

Thing is, if you want to try out different builds for exotic armor, you barely even need to grind. All you need to do is black lion salvage your exotic armor for the runes, buy an exotic set through dungeon vendors, gold or karma or some combination of the three and there you go.

Again, this is only for ascended gear and legendaries, things that we actually have to grind considerably to get.

Mace/Greatsword Video (Sept Patch)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoAjKtD6MLY

(edited by killahmayne.9518)

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Posted by: Zaoda.1653

Zaoda.1653

I’ve always thought that if there were to be legendary armor, that unlocking runes on your armor and being able to switch them out should be applied to it.

I’m not too sure on whether ascended armor deserves it, but I do love the concept. I myself have been in this situation many times – but not usually with runes… with transmutation stones.

While my ascended armor outfit looks amazing on my female ele, it looks absolutely hideous on my male ele. I can’t begin to imagine how many transmutation stones I’ve wasted just trying to be happy with the 1 character I can stick to.

Forever a supporter of more male skimpy armor

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Posted by: Zaxares.5419

Zaxares.5419

That’s why I’m making my Ascended gear set to be as generically useful as possible. (It’s going to be a mixed stat set, with a bit more emphasis on Zerk.) For niche builds, I’ll just be sticking with Exotics.

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Posted by: Ben K.6238

Ben K.6238

To be honest I’d craft an exotic set rather than overwrite an ascended set with travellers’ runes. If there’s enough spare materials to go around some of the pieces (chest and leggings first) will be ascended. But I won’t delete expensive stuff.

It would be nice if every piece of armour or weapon had swappable runes after you apply more than one, but that’s likely going to do nasty things to the database. Perhaps the most reasonable compromise there would be providing a set of 3 rune slots to choose between, with the ability to purchase a couple more on the gem store.

(edited by Ben K.6238)

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Posted by: Astralporing.1957

Astralporing.1957

My main point is that if ANet changes Ascended Gear to be account bound to encourage playing on alternate characters, why not allow us to switch between runes that we have previously bought for that particular ascended set?

They still want you to grind for gear – that’s basically the only reason behind ascended tier existence, after all. They just don’t want to be too obvious about it.

Remember, the ascended armor (with the jacked up prices for silk/damask) was introduced long after they admitted they know people think that ascended gear is too much of a grind. And those required even more grind than any earlier pieces.
That should tell you something.

Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November

(edited by Astralporing.1957)

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Posted by: JCROY.5730

JCROY.5730

You can skip most of this text and go to the main point to the 7th paragraph if you don’t want to read the background.

So you finally have gotten your full set of Ascended Armor for your Mesmer. You probably spent 500-600 gold and 2 months of grinding dungeons, world boss train or w/e. Or if you did it in a month probably grinded for 6 hours a day.

You are really happy, and go ahead and out fit your armor with some traveler runes for extra mobility as Mesmer’s do not have huge access to swiftness.

A month later, you kind of get bored of your mesmer and want to play one of your other level 80 classes, perhaps an Elementalist because hey why not, the ascended gear that you have is transferable and usable by any light armoured class.

However, you realize that traveler runes probably aren’t the best runes for an Elementalist because they have alot of access to swiftness. You want something maybe like Hoelbrak for the extra damage. Cringing at the thought of replacing your 50 gold rune set for Hoelbrak, you reluctantly do so because you want to have the best experience with your Elementalist as possible.

However after a week or so, you kind of realize that the Elementalist isn’t really your class or you get kind of bored and want to go back to your mesmer. However, you don’t have the funds to replace your Hoelbrak runes for Travelers. So you grind dungeons and WBT for the next few days and finally you are able to come up with the money. You again cringe at the fact that this time, you are replacing a 60-70 gold rune set, but do it anyway because you really need the swiftness. It is then it actually hits you. You just pretty much wasted 120 gold for nothing, I could of at least got some nice skins or even 1 or 2 ascended weapons.

I’m sure we’ve all been in that position before, switching between classes but not having the desired runes, including myself. I have three ascended sets. Two heavy and one light. I got two heavy because I didn’t want to replace runes all the time, between a roaming build and a zergbusting/GvG build.

ANet has already made ascended gear transferable so we can have a better experience with other classes we may choose to tryout. However, that experience is incomplete and somewhat frustrating when you don’t have the runes that you want.

My suggestion is, once you have bought the runes and put it in your gear, allow the option to switch to those runes anytime that you want. For example, I have traveler runes on my light ascended armor, but for my Necro I want perplexity. I can simply buy the perplexity, equip it in my gear knowing I can switch back to travelers if I ever want to play on my Mesmer without unnecessarily spending the money to do so. For ascended weapons it isn’t so bad, but to make it consistent this should also be done for ascended weapons and legendaries

IMO opinion you are making one minor mistake…if you want to EXPERIMENT…do not try Ascended gear.. instead, make or buy some exotic and try that. If it is to your liking THEN consider:
1. make another ASC set
2. Replace your runes

If both experiences are satisfying though..I think option 1 is the best option
Hope it helps

“see cow, grab bundle, feed cow?”

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Posted by: MikaHR.1978

MikaHR.1978

Unfortunately ou are spot on, whole gear setup, ESPECIALLY with whole ascended thingy just all but diminished something that should be strenght of the game: class/build experimentation and variation.

Even in sPvP you have to dish out gold to unlock basic thiings like amulets/traits.

The promise of the game (as you can read in my sig) is unfortunately going away more and more as time passes.

Colin Johanson: “Everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the
best statistical loot in the game. We want everyone on an equal power base.”

(edited by MikaHR.1978)

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Posted by: Frostfang.5109

Frostfang.5109

I totally agree with u OP!

Kima & Co

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Posted by: fictitiousacct.1782

fictitiousacct.1782

I’m on the wall with this cuz I feel there’d be a loss of an important gold sink if it was easily adjustable. If they did allow for selectable runes/sigils, it should require a fairly hefty gold sink to balance out the lowering of demand for expensive runes/sigils. And that’s something I don’t want to happen.

Your gear should level up with you as you level your character, so if you’re experimenting with builds, I’d suggest instead getting a full set of exotic armor with the runes you’re testing and salvage it after testing if you decide to use it on your ascended. But just using ascended as a test and replacing expensive runes is more your fault I’d say.

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Posted by: killahmayne.9518

killahmayne.9518

I’m on the wall with this cuz I feel there’d be a loss of an important gold sink if it was easily adjustable. If they did allow for selectable runes/sigils, it should require a fairly hefty gold sink to balance out the lowering of demand for expensive runes/sigils. And that’s something I don’t want to happen.

Your gear should level up with you as you level your character, so if you’re experimenting with builds, I’d suggest instead getting a full set of exotic armor with the runes you’re testing and salvage it after testing if you decide to use it on your ascended. But just using ascended as a test and replacing expensive runes is more your fault I’d say.

Although I said previously that people would rather grind dungeons, buy exotics, etc. Exotics aren’t cheap either and people act like they are.

The average price for a piece of Berserker light armour if I am not mistaken is like 6.5 gold. That makes it 39 gold for the entire set. Add that to the price of the runes you just purchased it isn’t cheap. Although there is the saving grace of salvaging the runes, you are still losing lots of money if you want to sell the runes back. Or you could do a dungeon 20-25 times for a full set. You can also buy the exotics for karma and with WvW badges, however those armors are pretty much like exotic in that they are not salvagable. And if you like the build that this set affords, you are pretty much stuck with it until you grind your butt for another 2 months for another ascended set. I did exactly that, instead of having 1 heavy, 1 medium and 1 light, I have 2 heavies and 1 light.

Like I said before, it would not hurt the market at all. You are still purchasing the runes regardless. It is the equivalent of purchasing runes for an exotic set that you choose to keep. I still have sigils from the exotics that I chose to keep dating a year back.

Not everybody has ascended armor either, majority of the people are still stuck in exotic armor. It would impact the exotic market if anything, but even then, exotics are obtained in a few different ways to make a meaningful impact. In fact, it would infuse alot of money into the market in the short-term if this change were to happen.

Mace/Greatsword Video (Sept Patch)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoAjKtD6MLY

(edited by killahmayne.9518)

Ascended Gear and Runes

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Posted by: pdavis.8031

pdavis.8031

I’m on the wall with this cuz I feel there’d be a loss of an important gold sink if it was easily adjustable. If they did allow for selectable runes/sigils, it should require a fairly hefty gold sink to balance out the lowering of demand for expensive runes/sigils. And that’s something I don’t want to happen.

Your gear should level up with you as you level your character, so if you’re experimenting with builds, I’d suggest instead getting a full set of exotic armor with the runes you’re testing and salvage it after testing if you decide to use it on your ascended. But just using ascended as a test and replacing expensive runes is more your fault I’d say.

I would just point out that buying runes on the TP isn’t much of a gold sink. Only 15% of the sale is being removed when you buy from the TP. Granted those fees in general are a HUGE and much needed gold sink, but that is also factored over tens of thousands of TP transactions per day. Even so, you’ll still need to buy the runes/sigils in order to unlock them, so it won’t really effect rune/sigil sales at all, unless it’s an increased demand, especially for high end runes/sigils (i.e. strength runes/intelligence sigils).

“You know what the chain of command is?
It’s the chain I beat you with until you
recognize my command!”