Guild Wars 2

I’m not entirely sure where to post this but I suppose this is probably the best fit.

One of the things that I’m sure many people are noticing is that as soon as they get ascended gear that fits their current spec, that spec is either getting nerfed or something else is getting buffed necessitating either a complete reroll or just a respeccing of that character.

This annoyance is compounded by the fact that it takes a significant amount of time to acquire ascended gear.

For example I recently spent all my laurels buying ascended gear for my ele only to find that I’m probably going to be much better off in the near future either playing my engi or rerolling to thief (not sure yet I haven’t read the notes.)

I find this unacceptable and I’m sure many people are just as frustrated as I am.

My suggestion to Anet is to make Ascended gear farmable so that the rerolling/respeccing process won’t be so frustrating.

Thanks for reading.

No no no no no no … (15 no lenght :p)

Just jumping in, but I’m pretty sure you’re going to get a lot of responses from people pointing out this is exactly how “most other MMO’s work, deal with it”.

But, maybe that’s just it?

GW2 set out to “not be that other MMO”, to critically assess mechanics that are irritating or un-fun and find an alternative solution.

Arenanet might not have set out to introduce this psuedo-mechanic of re-gearing but it’s one that exists and it IS frustrating, so… it might well be worthwhile investigating gameplay solutions to it besides re-grinding everything.

Well I personally enjoy a mild gear grind. I was very excited when I found out about ascended gear but I’ve been equally frustrated trying to get ascended gear at the rate I’ve had to respec/reroll.

I’m not going to argue with people about what the game ought to be. That’s clearly a waste of time.

This is a thread I’m hoping a dev will read and at least consider for the future.

You are massively overreacting. I seriously doubt elementalists will fall apart in WvW or PvE because of the nerfs that are coming. And you can’t claim eles aren’t in need of a nerf in sPvP.

Buy an ascended amulet that has every stat on it like zygery and stop worrying about min/maxing every single point for your build.

In almost every other MMO, your stats are ALL that matters. In Guild Wars 2 a lot more matters than pure stats

I’ve mentioned many times. Ascended gear is a bad idea… It’s a gear treadmill that the game was thousands of times better without.

When it was just a ring or two, ok… Now it’s full accessories, with full gear sets set to come.

As someone with a lot of ascended crap already ( because I have to, because it’s the BiS), I’d be incredibly happy if they announced the ascended gear stats being nerfed down to exotics… or exotics being pushed up to ascended.

GW set out to be a different MMO. One where horizontal progression substitutes its vertical counterpart. It’d be a shame to lose that.

I agree, as much as we are forced to change gear due to class balancing in this game, it becomes a burden to re-stat with normal gear. With standard gear it’s expensive but possible. With ascended, it’s impossible until you can save up more since it’s time gated.

Making it farmable would present other problems and will likely never happen.

What I would love to see is a refund NPC that you could trade Ascended gear to and receive a portion of your laurels back to spend on other alts/gear. Or, at the very least a re-spec NPC where you pay a fee to change the stats on your laurel purchased gear. Similar to the profession trainers where you have the option to pay a fee to re-trait instead of buying the book for 2g every time.

Brewbeer.8239:

You are massively overreacting. I seriously doubt elementalists will fall apart in WvW or PvE because of the nerfs that are coming. And you can’t claim eles aren’t in need of a nerf in sPvP.

I don’t care if the changes are valid or invalid. I’m not going to argue about that sort of thing, we’ll be here all day and it will just be an appeal to common opinion or appeal to authority argument anyways.

The reality for me is that if the changes that I’ve read about are implemented then I’m going to shelve my ele and either play my engi or reroll to thief until the next big balance change. After reading the ele forum I’ve realized I’m definitely not alone.

I don’t mind rerolling. I don’t mind respeccing. That’s part of MMOs. What I mind is being unable to acquire ascended gear at the rate that I’m having to respec/reroll.

Ascended gear isn’t available in sPvP so that’s irrelevant to the discussion.

Vayne.8563:

Buy an ascended amulet that has every stat on it like zygery and stop worrying about min/maxing every single point for your build.

In almost every other MMO, your stats are ALL that matters. In Guild Wars 2 a lot more matters than pure stats

Or they could make it possible for people who want to min/max to do so.

It’s even worse with soulbound legendaries.

Legendaries should be account bound on use.

We already have the ability to do this with the karka shell accessory, the code is there.

Israel.7056:

I’m not entirely sure where to post this but I suppose this is probably the best fit.

One of the things that I’m sure many people are noticing is that as soon as they get ascended gear that fits their current spec, that spec is either getting nerfed or something else is getting buffed necessitating either a complete reroll or just a respeccing of that character.

This annoyance is compounded by the fact that it takes a significant amount of time to acquire ascended gear.

For example I recently spent all my laurels buying ascended gear for my ele only to find that I’m probably going to be much better off in the near future either playing my engi or rerolling to thief (not sure yet I haven’t read the notes.)

I find this unacceptable and I’m sure many people are just as frustrated as I am.

My suggestion to Anet is to make Ascended gear farmable so that the rerolling/respeccing process won’t be so frustrating.

Thanks for reading.

I thought it already was? I thought that was why everyone was running Fractals over… and over… and over… and over… they were getting multiple sets of ascended gear?

Tolmos.8395:

I thought it already was? I thought that was why everyone was running Fractals over… and over… and over… and over… they were getting multiple sets of ascended gear?

To my knowledge only the rings and backpiece are available through FoTM and the rings are either acquired through random drops from the daily chest or by exchanging ten tokens for one ring and you can only acquire one token per day much like how you can only acquire one laurel per day.

Israel.7056:

Tolmos.8395:

I thought it already was? I thought that was why everyone was running Fractals over… and over… and over… and over… they were getting multiple sets of ascended gear?

To my knowledge only the rings and backpiece are available through FoTM and the rings are either acquired through random drops from the daily chest or by exchanging ten tokens for one ring and you can only acquire one token per day much like how you can only acquire one laurel per day.

That is still farmable. Just over a longer period of time.

Tolmos.8395:

That is still farmable. Just over a longer period of time.

Well the time required is really the issue here. I’m saying it takes too long to acquire ascended gear given how frequently the meta gets changed due to balance patches by the devs.

Israel.7056:

Tolmos.8395:

That is still farmable. Just over a longer period of time.

Well the time required is really the issue here. I’m saying it takes too long to acquire ascended gear given how frequently the meta gets changed due to balance patches by the devs.

Screw the META, just gear up a build you like and stick to it. METAsheep annoy me to no end. I main as a HGH Pistol/Shield Engineer, the meta is to use grenades but i have more fun without: yet i will still tiny dunk you into yesterday.

SKILL>meta builds.

Indeed, this is really only an issue if you decide to follow the flavor of the month. If you just play the way you want instead of which way is the “best” (and in most cases they are actually not the same) you would not really get effected by this.
I have all ascended pieces except the back-item on my Mesmer at the moment, and yet I do not scream and complain about them changing stuff in the meta, since I don’t build around the meta but rather build around what I like.

Of course, no one really knows, moving into the future, if there won’t be yet other ways to attain ascended gear either. I’d have to assume there would be.

And in the long run, it all balances out anyway. X number of people get nerfed. X number of people farm to respec. The server remains more or less, by percentage of players respeccing at any time, even.

Which is pretty much what WvW was supposed to be. It was never going to be, nor was it supposed to be, balanced for 1v1.

Brewbeer.8239:

You are massively overreacting. I seriously doubt elementalists will fall apart in WvW or PvE because of the nerfs that are coming. And you can’t claim eles aren’t in need of a nerf in sPvP.

I’m not an ele but a mesmer, and rabid gear just became useless in WvW, it already was less than average in PvE. Our whole class is built around confusion, including many traits, and we’re probably the worst class at applying any other damage conditions. If they don’t massively buff some some other aspect, the patch will break condition builds in WvW and it doesn’t help with PvE either, which means I’ll have to acquire a totally new set of gear, including runes and jewels, which means another 500k karma and lots of gold.

I hope they will make ascended and legendary items account-bound someday…

Zaviel.1245:

Screw the META, just gear up a build you like and stick to it. METAsheep annoy me to no end. I main as a HGH Pistol/Shield Engineer, the meta is to use grenades but i have more fun without: yet i will still tiny dunk you into yesterday.

SKILL>meta builds.

I doubt that. Not that it matters.

lordkrall.7241:

Indeed, this is really only an issue if you decide to follow the flavor of the month. If you just play the way you want instead of which way is the “best” (and in most cases they are actually not the same) you would not really get effected by this.
I have all ascended pieces except the back-item on my Mesmer at the moment, and yet I do not scream and complain about them changing stuff in the meta, since I don’t build around the meta but rather build around what I like.

Well I like to play the meta builds and I don’t think there’s a problem with that. I think that this game should be more accommodating to people like me. I don’t really care if you agree or disagree, I’m more concerned with what the developers think.

Just stick to “your” class. Why drop it only because it got less effective? For what reasons do you play a roleplaying game?

kokiman.2364:

Just stick to “your” class. Why drop it only because it got less effective? For what reasons do you play a roleplaying game?

I can play anything I don’t have a class. I play whatever I think will be most effective because that’s what I like to do. Why does this matter?

The issue isn’t me or my reasons for doing things the way I do them, the issue is with the time it currently takes to acquire new sets of ascended items.

Israel.7056:

Well I like to play the meta builds and I don’t think there’s a problem with that. I think that this game should be more accommodating to people like me. I don’t really care if you agree or disagree, I’m more concerned with what the developers think.

So the devs should never try to balance the game?
It is after all very likely that the flavor of the month build is the overpowered build, so of course it will get nerfed.
If people are stupid enough to spend loads of time/money/whatever to get gear that only works for that very specific build that is their problem, not ArenaNets.

lordkrall.7241:

So the devs should never try to balance the game?
It is after all very likely that the flavor of the month build is the overpowered build, so of course it will get nerfed.
If people are stupid enough to spend loads of time/money/whatever to get gear that only works for that very specific build that is their problem, not ArenaNets.

This is a false dilemma. It’s entirely possible for the game to have ongoing balancing and for the ascended gear to be more easily grinded so that people can more easily switch classes/specs, in fact they are complementary not antagonistic in nature.

I also don’t think people are stupid for playing whatever is the strongest build at the time for their respective class.

I think the laurel system is cool, but I do agree there needs to be another way to obtain ascended amulet and accessory, beside laurels and rng from guild bounty. And I’m not implying a I want it now attitude, but I hate if I want and ascended amulet or accessory, is through obtaining laurels, and I can only get one a day, after that, there is nothing you can do to progress yourself toward that piece of gear. Waiting 1 month to get enough laurel for one piece is pretty rediculous.

I’m not an owner of a legendary nor am I striving towards one, but I do agree they should make it account bound, I simply don’t understand why weapons are soul bound anyways. As much hard work they put into obtaining, at least give them the ability to show it off on their other characters.

Israel.7056:

lordkrall.7241:

So the devs should never try to balance the game?
It is after all very likely that the flavor of the month build is the overpowered build, so of course it will get nerfed.
If people are stupid enough to spend loads of time/money/whatever to get gear that only works for that very specific build that is their problem, not ArenaNets.

This is a false dilemma. It’s entirely possible for the game to have ongoing balancing and for the ascended gear to be more easily grinded so that people can more easily switch classes/specs, in fact they are complementary not antagonistic in nature.

I also don’t think people are stupid for playing whatever is the strongest build at the time for their respective class.

Sounds like you are playing the completely wrong genre (to me).

Well, if you’re smart, you’ve been saving guild commendations and laurals, because they’ve been around a while now, enough for me to get amulets for 3 different characters. So if you’re so worried about min/maxing, just don’t spend them, and save them for when stuff gets nerfed, because you know it’s going to.