Guild Wars 2

Another thread asserted that the difference between Ascended and Exotic gear is only 5%. I believe this is not true, but instead of derailing that thread to point out the error I decided to make my own. I do not intend this to be either pro-ascended or anti-ascended, instead, I just want to lay out what I believe to be the facts.

As such, I may be wrong. Please let me know which of my assumptions are erroneous.

In my view, most people ignore the way stats interact with each other. As such, I am going to compare three versions of standard meta-builds. The first will be all ascended gear (AA), the second will be partial ascended (ascended weapons and trinkets, exotic armor), the third will be all exotics. If a piece of gear can accept an infusion, I am including the recommended infusion in the build. I’m using the recommended consumables. If there is a choice of builds, I’m selecting the one that has the biggest base stat increase to minimize the effect of ascended gear. I’m not sure the best way to handle that there is no soldier gem for exotic jewelry, I’m settling on azurite, which is the closest I can find (loss of power, gain of vitality over soldiers)

I’m going to look at effective power, measured by average weapon damage * power * ((1-crit chance)(1) + (crit chance)(crit damage))
I am also going to compare the number of hits to down in a duel (1 vs 1 situation).

The first build I’m looking at is the Guardian-Meta Build.
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Guardian_-_AH_Frontliner

AA version
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJASGmIhoyaGw+DChy86A4COAA-TVRQwAZV/pjyvVKBBs/QPdBBAQAuZsZAH9oH9oH9odzbO0bO0bWGAmFA-w
average weapon damage: 1100, power 2213, Crit Chance 21%, Crit Damage 170, Armor 3252, Health 25355
Raw Power: 1100*2213((1-.21)(1) + (.21)(1.7)) = 2,792,142

PA Version
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJASGmIhoyaGw+DChy86A4COAA-TVRPwAAU/JkyvXKBJs/QQdBBAQAuZsZAu5NH6NH6NLDAzCA-w
average weapon damage: 1100, power 2199, crit chance: 21%, crit damage 170, armor 3181, health 24945
Raw Power: 1100*2199((1-.21)(1) + (.21)(1.7)) = 2,774,478

EX Version
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJASGmIhoyaGw+DChy86A4COAA-TlxFwAX0FQT5nJ1fAoEU1+DaN/RGAmFA-w
average weapon damage: 1048, power 2043, crit chance: 20%, crit damage 170, armor 3135, health 25185
Raw Power: 1048*2043*((1-.2)(1)+(.2)(1.7)) = 2,440,813

Raw Power
In terms of raw power, the PA is a 13.67% increase over EX, the AA is a 14.39% increase over the EX, and AA is a .006% increase over PA.

For a duel.
EX vs PA
EX does 2,440,813/3181=767.31 points of damage to PA each hit. PA has 24,945 health. EX downs PA in 32.51 hits.
PA does 2,774,478/3135=885.00 points of damage to EX each hit. EX has 25185 health. PA downs EX in 28.48 hits.
In a duel PA downs EX in 12.40% less hits.

PA vs AA
PA does 2,774,478/3252 = 853.16 points of damage to AA each hit. AA has 25,355 health. PA downs AA in 29.72 hits.
AA does 2,792,142/3181 = 877.76 points of damage to PA each hit. PA has 24,945 health. AA downs PA in 28 hits.
In a duel AA downs PA in 4.38% fewer hits.

From this I conclude that, in a PvP environment. Full Ascended is approximately 4% better than Partial Ascended.

As a comparison, look at the warrior build.

AA version http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQNBiYDxAcBF2+OA0lCpzgQYDA-TVRWwADU+FU9HS6GAs/gElgkBgZMA-w
PA version http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQNBiYDxAcBF2+OA0lCpzgQYDA-TVRPwAfU+BU3AA1f4s/gLlgkBgZMA-w
EX version http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQNBiYDxAcBF2+OA0lCpzgQYDA-TlRDwAJUC2T5HIdDwU/h5+DAM/RGAmxA-w

Following the above methodology you can see that again, full ascended is about 4% better than partial ascended in a dueling situation.

tl;dr in an environment where you care about armor full ascended is about 4% better that ascended with exotic armor and 14% better than exotic armor. Partial ascended is about 10% better than exotics.

Thank you for the very informative post. I conforts me in my resolution to NOT craft an ascended armor. A 4% increase in effectiveness is not worth hundreds of gold.

Does this include ascended decked out with infusions?

Essence Snow.3194:

Does this include ascended decked out with infusions?

The recommended infusions are added, according to the original poster.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/31wbip/ascended_vs_exotic_gear_comparison_spreedsheet/

Or for the spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/tOHfTLaYN4f25Bz6dCl0e9Q/htmlview?pli=1

Sorel.4870:

Essence Snow.3194:

Does this include ascended decked out with infusions?

The recommended infusions are added, according to the original poster.

So what exactly does that entail? I looked at the links provided and they seem to only include power infusions.

Ayrilana.1396:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/31wbip/ascended_vs_exotic_gear_comparison_spreedsheet/

Or for the spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/tOHfTLaYN4f25Bz6dCl0e9Q/htmlview?pli=1

That’s great information! I wish I had seen it before. The difference between my analysis and this one is that I take into account the damage reduction from taking hits. Obviously, this isn’t important in a PvE environment, but it matters more in WvW.

Nice work.

But there is a difference between effectiveness, and a perctange of stat increases, which is what is commonely referred to as being 5% better than exotic.

Look at beserker helm.
Exotic: Ascended:
Defense: 121 127
Power: 45 47
Precision: 32 34
Ferocity: 32 34

Defense difference:
4.8387% difference
Power difference:
4.3478% difference
Precision/ferocity Difference:
6.0606% difference

(Formula ( | V1 – V2 | / ((V1 + V2)/2) ) * 100
http://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/algebra/percent-difference-calculator.php)

Then we take the average of those differences in each stat, it comes to 5.3269%

So according to the straight stat number from exotic to ascended, we find that ascended has ~5% increase in stats over exotic armor.

Thanks, TooBz! I appreciate the work and the post. Also, thanks to Ayrilana for the link.

Now, if only the, “Full Asc. is only a 5% increase over full Exotic!” excuse-makers would read and understand it. I expect not, but who knows.

@ pdavis
Looking at stats alone is a relatively useless comparison. Stats are meaningless numbers unless actually plugged into the formulae that make them matter.

Well i don’t think it’s that big of a deal most stuff you will fight is gonna die fast no matter what now if there where boss’s that took 30min to kill that extra dmg would add up but that’s not the case with the -boss’s in gw2

By now, everyone who has played this game for more then a few months and has delved into the exotics vs asc. gear knows or should know that there is “about” 5% difference in stats.
That being said, ascended is something a lot of players work towards, because let’s face it, any mmorpg aims towards what ppl call ‘loot’. Having a goal keeps players playing.

Now you can ask yourself, is it worth getting ? Depends if you want a certain goal, or if you want to have the ‘best’ setup, or if you just like the crafting.

But with so many differences in builds, gear combinations and, lets not forget, skills and traits, the slight (less then 5% on average) difference in exo vs asc gear is virtually negligable.

Purely from a PvE point of view, ascended gear is pointless with the exception of the infusions for fractals. And even that can be obtained with just trinkets (depending how much you’re willing to spend on those).

But a nice comparison anyways, thx for sharing.

Cool post….is there a ballpark figure for about how much it costs to craft an ascended. I made my own gs awhile back but then took a break from the game so I’ve forgotten how much it was.

Thx

Nice work. Especially the difference between full ascended and ascended with exotic armor is important since the armor is the trully expensive one.

I fear though that once again this won’t matter to the “make ascended equal to exotic it’s to overpowered” crowd.

It’s unfortunate the people aren’t even aware of their OCDs being the main problem behind this, and not actual ingame stats.

Still nice read.

Thank you! This was a very helpful post that convinced to finish the project of crafting full ascended.

Valky.2574:

Well i don’t think it’s that big of a deal most stuff you will fight is gonna die fast no matter what now if there where boss’s that took 30min to kill that extra dmg would add up but that’s not the case with the -boss’s in gw2

Unless you aim to do speedruns and do some record breaking, the difference in dmg is not really needed. Bosses die so fast nowadays (even the world bosses, blink and they’re gone…) i doubt any slight dmg increase is even noticable, lol.

But i have to say, i wouldn’t get any asc weapon unless it’s for the looks. Some look great, but leaving a trail of flowers behind…meh. Next thing we know, we’ll be shooting rainbows from our rifles or pistols, lmao.

IndigoSundown.5419:

@ pdavis
Looking at stats alone is a relatively useless comparison. Stats are meaningless numbers unless actually plugged into the formulae that make them matter.

Very true

But I was referring to the raw stat increase. Which is the argument being made over Ascended vs. Exotic and the difference between the two.

In the discussions that the OP was referring to, that 5% increase almost always comes up. And it is true. There is only a 5% increase in stats over exotic.
Of course that means something else when plugged into the right formula, and in terms of effectiveness.

But when people are talking about ascended vs exotic, its the stats that are most often brought up, and not the effectiveness of ascended vs exotic.

@pdavis, Thanks, so if I understand correctly (which I may not). I should have used

(hit to down B – hit to down A) / ((hit to down B + hit to down A) / 2)

in the first case I have that in a duel

PA is 13% more effective than EX, AA is 17% more effective than EX, and AA is 4% more effective than PA.

I like the hit to down metric because it ties in increases to vitality and armor as well as damage. But I realize that this is not helpful for PvE content.

Walker.7204:

Cool post….is there a ballpark figure for about how much it costs to craft an ascended. I made my own gs awhile back but then took a break from the game so I’ve forgotten how much it was.

Thx

I can post something later tonight as I don’t have access to my spreadsheet.

From memory, weapons are about 40-50 gold each. Light armor is about 415 gold, heavy around 365 gold, and light around 330 gold. Costs to level the crafting professions are not included.

EDIT: Attached a screenshot of what costs look like at the time of this edit.