Guild Wars 2

From what I understand, Anet is wanting to focus on horzontal progression over vertical progression. Vertical progression is the traditional gear grind. I suspect we will get the ability to craft ascended trinkets/food in addition to legendary armor/trinkets/food, but I doubt we will ever see a class above ascended other than legendary. I think what we have is it.

As far as my advice, unless you really want the skin and the ability to change stats on the fly legendary really has nothing to offer that ascended doesn’t and ascended is cheaper to make. Honestly though most people don’t even need ascended unless you are doing fractals. Its not neccessary for gameplay or endgame content. If you are going to though my advice is ascended unless you just really want the legendary skin. The stats are the same either way.

I can’t remember where I found the quote, but I remember reading that Colin supposedly said something along the lines of, Ascended would be the final tier, and nothing would be added above it, with the exception of Legendary, only things may possibly be added below it in future to add “progression”.

Like Steveway said, GW2 is all about horizonal progression, so the game is literally a giant fashion show, not a mathematics convention about who has the best stats.

Guild Wars 1 was a horizontal game. You got to level 20 and got your gear. After that, any gear, no matter how expensive, had the exact same stats. Any change was cosmetic only.

When they promoted Guild Wars 2 way back then, they specifically said that when you go to level 80 you would have easy access to the best gear. When they added ascended after launch, there was a big backlash and a number of people quit playing. It’s still a hot topic in the forums after all this time.

I don’t see them adding gear stats greater than ascended. Expanding on it, yes. A higher gear level, no.

I don’t think anyone know for sure. Only thing we can do is guess.

Base on an interview with Colin on PAX, my guess is not any time soon.

The first 3 minutes address the topic. That being said it is last year. So design philosophy may change.

fracture.9754:

I’m not exactly “down with the lingo” – what is horizontal and what is vertical progression? I’d imagine vertical progression is white->blue->green->yellow->orange->… and horizontal is like exotic berserker, exotic cleric, exotic assassin, … Am I wrong in this presumption?

So it’s safe to craft ascended gear then. Thank you guys.

Vertical progression is like WoW. Every expansion has higher levels and the old gear is now outdated. The players have to get a whole new set.

Horizontal progression is like Guild Wars 1. That game is now 10 years old. The highest level is still 20 and there have been no stat increases in gear. Changes to your character are playing the game to get more skills or is cosmetic.

Guild Wars 2, except for the addition of ascended, so far has been horizontal progression but mostly cosmetic horizontal progression.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/02/05/mmo-mechanics-comparing-vertical-and-horizontal-progression/

Regardless of that announcement the chance that there will be a new gear tier is about the same as being struck by lightning. I won’t say impossible, but so unlikely you don’t need to give it a second thought. The amount of people who would quit the game if they added a true gear treadmill would kill the game.

It is hard to say for sure. Their original stance was that there would be no more gear tiers for the forseeable future… but at that time they also said things like:

You will absolutely see new legendaries this year! (2013)
You will see new skills for every class this year (2013)
You will see new weapon combos for each class (no time frame given)
You will see other exciting methods of horizontal progression (no time frame given)

So basically nothing they have said has actually happened… so everyone is basically just guessing and hoping for what they want.

I’d advise against crafting ascended simply because it’s pointless in all zones/instances below level 80. (it’s the same or even worse than exotic)

Only reason I would craft it is if you do a lot of WvW or fractals, wanted it for the skin, or you just want to craft it just because.

But no, I don’t think they will release anything beyond ascended as far as stats go.

We may see ascended sigils and runes someday though.

fracture.9754:

Well I’d do it mostly for min/maxing stats and dungeons. In what scenario would it be worse than exotics, by the way?

On your budget, most notably.

fracture.9754:

Well I’d do it mostly for min/maxing stats and dungeons. In what scenario would it be worse than exotics, by the way?

Why ascended gear is a big joke in PvE

Considering they’re open to raising the level cap, most likely with an expansion, yes, ascended gear and legendaries could eventually get outdated. Since ascended isn’t completed rolled out yet and an expansion probably won’t happen anytime soon, the possibility of it becoming outdated likely won’t happen for several years at least. PAX may give some insight as to their future direction.

fracture.9754:

Well I’d do it mostly for min/maxing stats and dungeons. In what scenario would it be worse than exotics, by the way?

The percentage gain from Ascended over Exotics is not even across gear types. Trinkets provide a higher gain and are relatively easy to obtain (Fractals. Laurels, WvW and Guild Missions). Weapons have less of a percentage gain (in stats, the Weapon Damage stat is an approximate 5% raise) for considerably more effort. Armor provides the least percentage gain for the most effort.

Weapons and armor also drop, but the frequency is extremely low and the stat combinations are random. Even if you are lucky enough to get one, there are so many stat combos that there is an additional RNG hurdle with low chance to get what you want.

all I am going to say is I would have had a legend a long time ago if I did not go for lvling 3 crafting pros to get full ascend for one character ..

to bad ascend armor is not “legend” because u will start to hate ascend gear when u want to change builds…

would be so nice to own “legend armor” just to swap wvw builds when ever u want

sigh it is a pain to get to sets of ascend armor for dif builds or classes

If you are willing to farm the needed mats the weapons aren’t so bad. They won’t cost (much) additional gold if you gather the mats yourself and you can farm a bit each day and get the weapons over time.