Guild Wars 2

…instead of 5% as before.

What do you guys think about Ascended being further away from Exotics, in terms of stats/strength?

On the one hand, maybe it gives some people a new goal to reach.

On the other hand, is it a worthwhile goal to create? Some people like the fact that it is not a grind to get good gear, and with Ascended pulling further ahead than Exotics than before, it might make people view Ascended as required instead of optional.

When did they announce this?

Patch Notes.

http://dulfy.net/2015/06/16/gw2-upcoming-june-23-patch-notes/

“The attribute difference between exotic and ascended gear has been changed from 5% to 10%”

Ah, I will hold my judgement until we receive more info about the map reward system. The system has the potential of making mats easier to obtain which should alleviate the grind.

I will be honest; I find this upsetting.

I stuck with GW2 because of it’s no grind philosophy, and I was happy with the fact that Ascended was there for people who wanted it, but it was not so strong so as to make it become mandatory.

Not to be cliche, but I just don’t have as much gaming time as I once used to, and I liked that GW2 was not so intensive on time to feel like it was worthwhile.

See.. all the pre-order salt pushed this salt too far down in the forum….. scroll a few pages back or search for all the NaCl.

Mourningcry.9428:

See.. all the pre-order salt pushed this salt too far down in the forum….. scroll a few pages back or search for all the NaCl.

you read my mind; i was surprised not to see this topic on the front page. i guess people are more upset about the price lol.

honestly i just dont care. Im slowly crafting ascended anyways, so this isnt a big deal to me. I have 12 characters that will eventually have ascended armor. When i dont know, but they will 13 if you count Revenenant.

Will they be buffing Minions/Ranger Pets/Turrets with relation to armor level yet? Because they’re currently balanced around exotics and this is going to further hurt them. o.O

opiomorph.7983:

What do you guys think about Ascended being further away from Exotics, in terms of stats/strength?

I think it is against their game philosophy and what they ‘said’ they wanted to do with progression. :\ I have a full set of ascended on my main but that was because it was my main. 10%.. that’s significant enough I feel more pressure to have it all the time which is not what this game is about. Or at least not what it was about.

OK, that decision, coupled with the lack of a slot for my new Revenant character just did it for me. I have 15 (yes,15) lv 80 toons. The way they have everything gated, I can never hope to get them all into 100% ascended, which is now mandatory. Clearly, I’ve already spent way too much (money and time) on this game.

And they won’t even give us a free character slot w/ a pre-purchase?! Fortunately I have many other games I enjoy playing…

if it was not for this change, i would probably have already gone with the Ultimate Edition (omg gem sale)

However, this change has me seriously considering not even buying HoT.

I really do not want to have to put all my 80s into Ascended. That does not sound fun or worthwhile.

Why do you people feel like ascended is mandatory for all your characters?

Get trinkets and weapons, they are easier and much cheaper to get.
Wouldnt the difference between character fully geared in ascended, and character only not having ascended armor, be much less then 10% in result?
Are we talking about 3-5% difference in stats being mandatory right now, or are my thoughts on this wrong?

opiomorph.7983:

I will be honest; I find this upsetting.

I stuck with GW2 because of it’s no grind philosophy, and I was happy with the fact that Ascended was there for people who wanted it, but it was not so strong so as to make it become mandatory.

Not to be cliche, but I just don’t have as much gaming time as I once used to, and I liked that GW2 was not so intensive on time to feel like it was worthwhile.

Same boat as you, dang this is quite the news if it’s true T_T

I can live with an overpriced expansion. I love the game and i think that future updates after the expansion will justify the asking price.

But this is pretty bad. I never bothered with ascended on purpose because i don’t enjoy crafting and i like to change my stat combo’s. But 10% is nothing to sneze at. Doubling the stat differnce they are basicly forcing all the WvW players to run arround full ascended if they wan to be worth their mettle, as well as introduce new ascended only gearchecks to dungeons.

Harny.6012:

Why do you people feel like ascended is mandatory for all your characters?

Get trinkets and weapons, they are easier and much cheaper to get.
Wouldnt the difference between character fully geared in ascended, and character only not having ascended armor, be much less then 10% in result?
Are we talking about 3-5% difference in stats being mandatory right now, or are my thoughts on this wrong?

It’s the difference between winning and losing fights in WvW, I can tell you that. You need every advantage.

Perhaps they intend to increase the level cap for Fractals….?

Does this include the damage modifier on weapons or just the stats? If it is just the stat the actual difference still isn’t that big a deal. But a 10% damage modifier on weapons is quite significant.

Harny.6012:

Why do you people feel like ascended is mandatory for all your characters?

Get trinkets and weapons, they are easier and much cheaper to get.
Wouldnt the difference between character fully geared in ascended, and character only not having ascended armor, be much less then 10% in result?
Are we talking about 3-5% difference in stats being mandatory right now, or are my thoughts on this wrong?

Exactly, with the bad habit of stacking on each single boss even exotic is overkill for PVE in my opinion, too easy.
And it’s not like Ascended gear is even hard to farm, an armor set only took me a month without even really trying and then I took a 6 month break lol

Just gonna quote that guy from reddit here since i think its pretty relevant

DragonRulerX Ravenhunt • a day ago

Just going to point out a slightly more numeric statement.

I’ll be referencing this page: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wik…

Taking the top stat on a 2-handed Ascended weapon: 188
Multiplying by 1.3 = ~244
Taking the top stat on a 2-handed Exotic weapon: 179
Multiplying by 1.3 = ~233

Checking the percent difference of Ascended vs Exotic
244 / 233 = ~1.047 or roughly still 5% difference

Adding +5% to make a 10% difference in Exotic -> Ascended means Ascended gets boosted further.

Checking with the un-rounded numbers from above:
(Ascended value * 1.05) / (Exotic value)
((188 * 1.3) * 1.05) / (179 * 1.3) = ~1.10

Therefore,
The top stat of Ascended gear will be 256 or 257 rounding up or down.
The second stats of Ascended gear will be 182 or 183 rounding up or down.
The top stat of Exotic gear will be 232 or 233 rounding up or down.
The second stats of Exotic gear will be 166 or 167 rounding up or down.

Thus the difference between them will be…
Top Stat: 24
Second Stats: 16

Remember, this is only accounting for a 2-handed weapon atm.

I haven’t done all the piece calculations yet, but the difference will be rather substantial. This will be especially true with the upcoming change to condition damage since the stack limit is stated to be 1,500 now on damaging conditions. It’s also a rather big deal with considering shear damage output since the formula for direct damage is…

Damage done:
[(Weapon strength) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient)] / (target’s Armor)

Since Power is a multiplication factor – adding any Power increases damage rather substantially. This, when plotted, also references a graph similar to 1 / X. This means that eventually the amount of toughness you need to reduce the incoming damage by the same factor as before gets increased exponentially. This is the primary reason why players tend to stay away from +toughness and always seem to gravitate to +power.

If you look at this now in terms of the difference in Exotic vs Ascended – the difference is going to be rather clear.

I think the new damage percentage difference will be around 21% or so. Keep in mind that a large chunk of this comes from all of the accessories that are widely, and easily, available to payers. Armor, adding only less than 2% damage increase, will probably do near twice that. For the cost though, it’s still hardly worth it unless you absolutely feel you need it.

10% Sound fair.

Harder work = more return.

Anyone can find or buy exotics, but to get ascended you need to max out crafting and build your equipment plus use your laurels to give it the little extra.

Exotic equipment is one step below, not equal.

I never understood the ‘oh it’s to hard so it’s not fair’

Coming from the perspective of someone relatively new to the game with only 50(ish)G to my name, I think it’s good to have something worth striving for. However, it would be nice if the stats could be changed to encourage experimenting different builds.

I hate, Hate, HATE crafting.

See y’all, I’m done.

I think the change is good. While Anet does try to maintain a horizontal progression they have to make each existing set better than the last to the extent that people actually want to accrue it. In my humble opinion, 5% wasn’t very tempting and I personally only made Ascended gear for the skins and achievements. 10% is better enough that more players will try for it I think.

If a dude wears full exo soldier gear and other dude wears full ascended soldier gear the ascended player would have like + 100 power, + 80 vitality + 80 toughness + 60 armor +5% power damage modifier.

Overall ascended dude would have ~ 5% more stats and +5% damage multiplayer on top of that.

Getting an ascended weapon and trinkets is simply a must do thing. If you leave out the armor you will be “only” 2 % behind or so.

It’s been around 10% since the very start of ascended armor.

It’s been 5%.

Also, you don’t need to craft ascended armor for all your characters at all. Ascended is account bound after all. Now, if you really want to have different sets, that’s another story, but the way the game throws ascended chests at you, that cannot be a problem.

People broke down the math month’s ago on reddit, it always floated around 8%

IIvIIozzie.9250:

People broke down the math month’s ago on reddit, it always floated around 8%

Does that mean that under the new 10% stat and multiplier difference system, the actual increase in strength would be closer to 20%?

Also a link would be cool.

GuzziHero.2467:

I hate, Hate, HATE crafting.

See y’all, I’m done.

Chances are there will be new ways to get ascended gear in the expansion ( maybe masteries) but right now i agree. Don’t force me to level that stuff to 500

The gap is too big now imo
I feel like I have to geargrind my way to ascended now…

The true effects of ascended are not seen until you finish adding on all the attack modifiers. As the game has percent damage increases and decreases those 5% increases quickly cause major imbalance. Also if you add up the 5% damage stat increases, the 5% defense stat increase, and all other stat increases; you’re not 5% better than someone in exotic, you’re 5% better in each aspect which makes you >5% better.

Ascended itself is a symbol of how terrible at game design ArenaNet has become. It is counter-intuitive to how the entire game operates. Make alts and experience the different dynamic event chains! Try different builds to fit the content you are doing! Oh hey lets gate this new armor behind tons of grinding, crafting, and dailies! It’s pure and simple stupid design. The new 5% increase in ascended is absolutely unnecessary, there is literally no good reason to do it because as people have said you can already do everything with exotics. The only reason, which is a bad reason, is to force more people to grind for it as a way of artificially increasing “content”.

With the change of having a base stat at level 80 to be 1000 instead of 926 all it does is basically getting more in line with what it does at the moment, while all whites to exotic if not changed will be diminished in what the final result is but difference between exotic and ascended stays roughly the same. (As 1000 is the base value an increse of x is less worth as x/1000 is smaller than x/926)

A little damage calculation (simplified damage formula by leaving out skill coefficient and just using a berserker greatsword and no other equipment for both, also no crit):
Ascended
Strength: 1045-1155
Power: 188
Power new: 197
Exotic
Strength: 995-1100
Power: 179

Damage
Exo min: 995 * 1105 / 926 = 1187.3380129589632829373650107991
Exo max: 1100 * 1105 / 926 = 1312.6349892008639308855291576674
Asc min: 1045 * 1114 / 926 = 1257.1598272138228941684665226782
Asc max: 1155 * 1114 / 926 = 1389.4924406047516198704103671706

Exo min new: 995 * 1179 / 1000 = 1173.105
Exo max new: 1100 * 1179 / 1000 = 1296.9
Asc min new: 1045 * 1197 / 1000 = 1250.865
Asc max new: 1155 * 1197 / 1000 = 1382.535

As one can see the difference in the resulting values are again roughly the same (and would diminish even more with full equipment). It’s not quite correct as all equipment gets +30% attributes (the notes didn’t say if it’s 30% of the base, white, value or the rarities value, thus I left it out, though it’s probably based on white stats), but this also only diminishes the difference as the higher you go the more you need for having the same % difference.

Yea next thing you know they release legendary armor that is 15-20% more than exotics and patch legendary weapons and also make them the same way. 10% is a HUGE difference when it comes to dungeons. I can already imagine searching for a party and one description is going to say “Zerk Ascended only ping gear” especially for higher difficulty end game content (if that is ever going to get released).

IIvIIozzie.9250:

People broke down the math month’s ago on reddit, it always floated around 8%

I remember something similiar to this too when i started looking at ascended armor.

Dante.1763:

IIvIIozzie.9250:

People broke down the math month’s ago on reddit, it always floated around 8%

I remember something similiar to this too when i started looking at ascended armor.

That is because 5% more stats doesn’t equate to 5% more efficient.
It’s all relative to base stats, as x * 1.05 is different than x * 1.05 + y. It would only equate to that if the formula would be (x + y) * 1.05, which it’s not.

Derez.6510:

10% Sound fair.

Harder work = more return.

Anyone can find or buy exotics, but to get ascended you need to max out crafting and build your equipment plus use your laurels to give it the little extra.

Exotic equipment is one step below, not equal.

I never understood the ‘oh it’s to hard so it’s not fair’

First of all, no matter what Anet says now, Exotic was supposed to be the end. Second of all, spending a few hours following a chest train in SW and then whipping out your Visa is not exactly hard work… Unless of course you actually have to work (yes, I used that word on purpose) to do your crafting if you can’t afford to take the available shortcut due to…questionable game design.

Wow maxing a craft only takes a couple of hours at most, gawd people are so kitten lazy.
“Grind” here is 1/30 of what it is in games like AION or Tera.

I think this is going to come with a new way to get ascended gear.

If they keep ascended gear behind timegates and RNGgates this is complete kitten.

Kury.8210:

However, it would be nice if the stats could be changed to encourage experimenting different builds.

This is exactly what’s stopping me from crafting ascended armor. I don’t want to be stuck in one stat set. What if I feel like playing a new build? What if a balance update changes things? What if I need different sets for the different game modes?

Direct damage formula supposed to be (by wiki):
(Weapon strenght * Total Power * skill Modifier)/Total armor

If I am correct then asc increase weapon strenght and Equipement Power by 10%.

When we compare this to exo it will leave.
1,1 * (1,1 * Equipment Power + Base Stat Power + Buffs Power + Runes Power) / (Equipment Power + Base Stat Power + Buffs Power + Runes Power)

It mean dmg increase is at least 10% (regardless of stat set), and a bit more depending how much Equipment Power one have compared to Base Stats, and temproraly buffs.
If you don’t have any power on equipment it is 10% more direct damage.
If you don’t have any buffs and have 1k Equipment power (equals Base power), without power on runes, then you get 15,5% more direct damage.

It is ok if there will be other options to gain Ascended gear besides crafting it dont like crafting and i want an option to achieve it through WvW/PvE/tPvP that is they way GW2 wants to go so go it please!

NiBlack.3149:

Direct damage formula supposed to be (by wiki):
(Weapon strenght * Total Power * skill Modifier)/Total armor

If I am correct then asc increase weapon strenght and Equipement Power by 10%.

When we compare this to exo it will leave.
1,1 * (1,1 * Equipment Power + Base Stat Power + Buffs Power + Runes Power) / (Equipment Power + Base Stat Power + Buffs Power + Runes Power)

It mean dmg increase is at least 10% (regardless of stat set), and a bit more depending how much Equipment Power one have compared to Base Stats, and temproraly buffs.
If you don’t have any power on equipment it is 10% more direct damage.
If you don’t have any buffs and have 1k Equipment power (equals Base power), without power on runes, then you get 15,5% more direct damage.

I’ve given a real example just a few posts above. Your formula is flawed as it’s actually weapon strength * power * skill modifier / armor. You’re adding the stats to the weapon strength, which is not the case, and the difference isn’t as kittenhown in the numbers above.

Personally I don’t find this a big deal, and I only have 1 crafted ascended armour set. My biggest gripe is ascended crafting is very grindy because of the time-gate on ascended materials. If they got rid of that I would be tempted to craft more, but at the moment the cost and time-gating together are too painful.

Dulfy’s source merely claims to have access to early patch notes. Nobody knows whether these notes are officially “more elaborate” than the changes which have been posted here on the forums. The posts on the upcoming changes on these forums do not contain anything about that difference between exotic and ascended gear.

MegumiAzusa.2918:

Dante.1763:

IIvIIozzie.9250:

People broke down the math month’s ago on reddit, it always floated around 8%

I remember something similiar to this too when i started looking at ascended armor.

That is because 5% more stats doesn’t equate to 5% more efficient.
It’s all relative to base stats, as x * 1.05 is different than x * 1.05 + y. It would only equate to that if the formula would be (x + y) * 1.05, which it’s not.

Not all base stats apply equally from 0 to infinity.

Example. Take off all your armor and check how much precision you have and how much crit % you have.

Note how that baseline 900+ precision gets your crit chance up to about 4%.

imho, to make ascend armor ‘mean more’, they could have left the stats alone, make a NPC in each city that allows you to change the stats on each ascend piece for a small fee.

This would :

1. People would only need one ascended set per character
2. help people gear up alts
3. allow people to switch between builds
4. people would want to craft ascended for the convenience.
5. competitive balance in game modes (eg. WvW especially) remains somewhat normal.

Right now, with the time gated nonsense and the extreme cost in materials, you have to be sure what stats you want on the armor. And then if you want to switch between say zerk and condition, you would need a whole other set.

opiomorph.7983:

…instead of 5% as before.

What do you guys think about Ascended being further away from Exotics, in terms of stats/strength?

On the one hand, maybe it gives some people a new goal to reach.

On the other hand, is it a worthwhile goal to create? Some people like the fact that it is not a grind to get good gear, and with Ascended pulling further ahead than Exotics than before, it might make people view Ascended as required instead of optional.

People dont use food/oil buffs all of the time and those a significant buffs compaired to ascended. So i dont see a problem.

opiomorph.7983:

…instead of 5% as before.

What do you guys think about Ascended being further away from Exotics, in terms of stats/strength?

On the one hand, maybe it gives some people a new goal to reach.

On the other hand, is it a worthwhile goal to create? Some people like the fact that it is not a grind to get good gear, and with Ascended pulling further ahead than Exotics than before, it might make people view Ascended as required instead of optional.

MegumiAzusa.2918:

NiBlack.3149:

Direct damage formula supposed to be (by wiki):
(Weapon strenght * Total Power * skill Modifier)/Total armor

If I am correct then asc increase weapon strenght and Equipement Power by 10%.

When we compare this to exo it will leave.
1,1 * (1,1 * Equipment Power + Base Stat Power + Buffs Power + Runes Power) / (Equipment Power + Base Stat Power + Buffs Power + Runes Power)

It mean dmg increase is at least 10% (regardless of stat set), and a bit more depending how much Equipment Power one have compared to Base Stats, and temproraly buffs.
If you don’t have any power on equipment it is 10% more direct damage.
If you don’t have any buffs and have 1k Equipment power (equals Base power), without power on runes, then you get 15,5% more direct damage.

I’ve given a real example just a few posts above. Your formula is flawed as it’s actually weapon strength * power * skill modifier / armor. You’re adding the stats to the weapon strength, which is not the case, and the difference isn’t as kittenhown in the numbers above.

So you are saying that Weapon Power (that is one of weapon statistics) that now equals 5% more than exotic, as other stats. Won’t be increased to 10% to match with other statistics… Interesting.
Also Your example is one of the extreams, as Base stat is significantly higher than stats provided by equipment (it works like you only wore +pow on weapon, if you start doing math with other equipment equipment than you will see diffrence).