I think I was looking to get in on the horizontal CDI, however it seems to be the eleventh hour for that so I’ll post this here maybe it will spark some discussion, but I feel the need to put it somewhere.
Ascended armor and build variety:
I will start by saying that while traits are easy enough to redistribute (3.5 silver at lvl 80), the additional stats on armor trinkets and weapons are many times the total stat points available to you through traits, and can make a big difference in how your build plays.
While ascended quality armor and weapons are in my opinion, good for the game overall, They do have some drawbacks:
The amount of materials involved are immense and time/gold consuming to achieve, this leads to degenerate, or not fun play in order to attain even just one set.
Having best in slot gear being so time consuming to attain makes it seem unlikely that average players would ever consider having multiple sets of different stats to run different builds with. this limits build experimentation (due to high cost) and therefore limits build variety.
Being able to change builds easily and cheaply is the best way to encourage build variety and opens an entire avenue of viable horizontal progression for our characters. Especially if the rewards is access to a feature like “build templates”
Having any stat combo available to run on legendary weapons is great incentive to attain these weapons and makes them worth getting over exotics for long term players.
it makes sense for legendary a to have any stat available to them, they include 250 of each of the stat determining materials( claws, bones, totems, fangs, blood, scales, venom sacs), which makes up for the 8 or 9 stat combos that either can’t be crafted, or are crafted with different items like Passion flowers, karka shells, Azurite, quartz, or random inscription/insignia salvages/purchases.
To be honest, I would not like to see a legendary set of armor. Even if the requirements were very, very different from that of legendary weapons or if we got all 6 pieces at once. If we were eventually able to attain legendary armor, the function of stat swapping should be achievable by other means.
What if ascended armor could be “infusable”? Not with agony resistance, or with extra infusion slots, but with different stat combinations, one at a time, until it had every stat combo you wanted at your disposal….
There are a number of ways this can be implemented, either through boring but quicker means such as crafting, mystic forge recipes, or more interesting means like a number of npc’s (either in your home instance, or within your order or even the pact) that lead the player through instances (personal story style) themed for the type of “stat infusion” desired.
Or perhaps a combination of the two. Where the “infusion instances” give a material as a reward that is used in the crafting window or the mystic forge. that way there can be lore, And story, and a journey to increasing the stat combos available to you, and it can be done out of order, where you get stat infusions while working toward your ascended armor (the content won’t be gated).
This allows for a player to “unlock” variety, diversity, and new gameplay opportunities. Essentially progressing their character past the level cap, increasing the ways they can be effective without losing inventory space or having to grind out another set with different stats just to try a new play style.
It expands the game (more things to do/personal goals to reach for) without breaking the systems that are in place and having to change or consider rolling people back. And allows for expansion as new stat combos are added into the game.
Thoughts?