Guild Wars 2

Dark Catalyst.1028:

You guys have fun then.

I honestly don’t understand why people who want vertical progression and power creep came to Guild Wars 2 of all games. There are several other games out there that would meet your needs.

I think ANet lost a lot of their fans they gained through GW1 by making this move. I certainly won’t be playing WvW AT ALL because of ascended gear.

Did you actually enjoy WvW before? if you did, i really doubt youd stop because of ascended gear, the game mode still plays the same. And the gameplay type there isnt duplicated much. I mean, its always been unfair based on gear/time. I remember when the game started, people worked super hard for exotics.
42k karma per peice.
at 370 karma per event, and 5 min per event, thats 9 hours per piece. (didnt have all those karma items back then)

tokens were pretty rare, and exotic armor costs 950 for a set, for a hint back then people spent 1-2 weeks getting 500 badges for legendaries
so you are looking at 3-4 weeks to gear from tokens

dungeons, used to take about 25-45 minutes (dev said 40 min was their target for average players and 30 for good players) it started out giving less than 60, i think it was 45, and you need 1380 for a full set, thats about 30 runs at 45 tokens, and 23 runs at 60 tokens. at 40 min per run, that would be 15 hours of dungeon running.

Point is, Exotics were pretty hard to get at start too, if you look at the controlled means of getting exotics, and times to obtain them, you see it was never meant to be as easy as it is now. And people could make the same argument people make now about ascended giving an advantage.

AngryCat.4825:

Lexandro.1456:

Hey why dont we just remove ALL stats/buffs/gear/skills/traits/class mechanics from WvW and have everyone run around in underwear with a 1dps dagger and nothing else. I mean it would be balanced right?

Freakin’ bookahs have better underwear. NERF HUMANS.

And the rat people are smaller and harder to target – make everyone the same size!

phys.7689:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

You guys have fun then.

I honestly don’t understand why people who want vertical progression and power creep came to Guild Wars 2 of all games. There are several other games out there that would meet your needs.

I think ANet lost a lot of their fans they gained through GW1 by making this move. I certainly won’t be playing WvW AT ALL because of ascended gear.

Did you actually enjoy WvW before? if you did, i really doubt youd stop because of ascended gear, the game mode still plays the same. And the gameplay type there isnt duplicated much. I mean, its always been unfair based on gear/time. I remember when the game started, people worked super hard for exotics.
42k karma per peice.
at 370 karma per event, and 5 min per event, thats 9 hours per piece. (didnt have all those karma items back then)

tokens were pretty rare, and exotic armor costs 950 for a set, for a hint back then people spent 1-2 weeks getting 500 badges for legendaries
so you are looking at 3-4 weeks to gear from tokens

dungeons, used to take about 25-45 minutes (dev said 40 min was their target for average players and 30 for good players) it started out giving less than 60, i think it was 45, and you need 1380 for a full set, thats about 30 runs at 45 tokens, and 23 runs at 60 tokens. at 40 min per run, that would be 15 hours of dungeon running.

Point is, Exotics were pretty hard to get at start too, if you look at the controlled means of getting exotics, and times to obtain them, you see it was never meant to be as easy as it is now. And people could make the same argument people make now about ascended giving an advantage.

Got it. It’s always been unfair, so let’s make it even more unfair and make people grind out BiS gear doing the most mind numbingly boring crafting tasks ever designed.
Which doesn’t matter anyway I guess because I don’t have any gold because I don’t farm or grind and I’m not about to spend real money to craft this ascended “we couldn’t provide with you real content so here’s some busywork” tier.

Crapgame.6519:

Suddenflame.2601:

Ascended weapons and soon to be armour should be left as is till you can come up with a more valid argument than its imbalanced. WvW is never balanced around the player but around the servers. Plus I have 3 ascended weapons so I know how hard they are to gain. They aren’t hard at all. I got one from a drop, and the other 2 are crafted. If you claim they are hard to gain than like I said in another post your doing it wrong and rethink how your doing it.

Enlighten everyone how they are doing it wrong when not every has the same amount of play time or interests in other aspects of the game that could yield ascended items. This argument is a lot like peeing in the when. The only outcome is that your leg or pants will get wet…

There is a reason why these items are not allowed in the formal PvP maps.

Upon release of ascended gear it didn’t matter. A ring here, earring there, wasn’t so huge of a deal. Add in a back piece and weapons, well, stats increased yet again. Come Q1 or there about you now have armor. Now how do those stats start to look?

Now let us factor in the game play triad. There is PvE, there restricted PvP in the form of s/t PvP, and lastly there is the free for all WvW. PvE it doesn’t really matter those stats because there is a group of people and one can learn the static content. There are people pugging 50 level fractals after all. There is the free for all WvW battles in which case hiding behind a zerg gear doesn’t matter. 100% agree with you or anyone in regards to that argument. However, not everyone hides behind a zerg and prefers to go alone or run in small tactical teams. Roaming to control or deny bloodlust comes to mind. New edge of madness maps could be another. Flipping supply camps or stopping supply routes or yaks.

Stats do matter over time and ascended gear isn’t easy to obtain. That is another debate which I really don’t care to do here in this thread. However, if you look at the aspect of play, and options within WvW, one can factually argue that ascended gear changes the battle. If nothing else it does give you an edge just because 1 + 1 = 2.

Isn’t math a wonderful thing?

Funny… you pretty much have to go out of your way at this point to avoid getting materials for ascended stuff.

I know the question was not directed at me, but here goes anyway.

phys.7689:

Did you actually enjoy WvW before?

Yes. Quite a bit actually.

phys.7689:

if you did, i really doubt youd stop because of ascended gear…

Your doubt would be misplaced (in my case at least).

Ashen.2907:

I know the question was not directed at me, but here goes anyway.

phys.7689:

Did you actually enjoy WvW before?

Yes. Quite a bit actually.

phys.7689:

if you did, i really doubt youd stop because of ascended gear…

Your doubt would be misplaced (in my case at least).

And why? Because now you can’t be secure that you lost because the other player was better?

fellyn.5083:

Crapgame.6519:

Suddenflame.2601:

Ascended weapons and soon to be armour should be left as is till you can come up with a more valid argument than its imbalanced. WvW is never balanced around the player but around the servers. Plus I have 3 ascended weapons so I know how hard they are to gain. They aren’t hard at all. I got one from a drop, and the other 2 are crafted. If you claim they are hard to gain than like I said in another post your doing it wrong and rethink how your doing it.

Enlighten everyone how they are doing it wrong when not every has the same amount of play time or interests in other aspects of the game that could yield ascended items. This argument is a lot like peeing in the when. The only outcome is that your leg or pants will get wet…

There is a reason why these items are not allowed in the formal PvP maps.

Upon release of ascended gear it didn’t matter. A ring here, earring there, wasn’t so huge of a deal. Add in a back piece and weapons, well, stats increased yet again. Come Q1 or there about you now have armor. Now how do those stats start to look?

Now let us factor in the game play triad. There is PvE, there restricted PvP in the form of s/t PvP, and lastly there is the free for all WvW. PvE it doesn’t really matter those stats because there is a group of people and one can learn the static content. There are people pugging 50 level fractals after all. There is the free for all WvW battles in which case hiding behind a zerg gear doesn’t matter. 100% agree with you or anyone in regards to that argument. However, not everyone hides behind a zerg and prefers to go alone or run in small tactical teams. Roaming to control or deny bloodlust comes to mind. New edge of madness maps could be another. Flipping supply camps or stopping supply routes or yaks.

Stats do matter over time and ascended gear isn’t easy to obtain. That is another debate which I really don’t care to do here in this thread. However, if you look at the aspect of play, and options within WvW, one can factually argue that ascended gear changes the battle. If nothing else it does give you an edge just because 1 + 1 = 2.

Isn’t math a wonderful thing?

Funny… you pretty much have to go out of your way at this point to avoid getting materials for ascended stuff.

Through “just playing” the game, I have piles and piles of bloodstone dust, 15 dark matter and 30 of the rest. Hmm….

So I saw a couple of posts that basically accused me of defending Ascended items to keep my privileged advantaged status.

Well, I don’t have any ascended items. I’m pretty casual (337 play hours/423 days) and don’t even have full exotics. So that argument is pretty much DOA.

If coming out and saying that gear hasn’t really mattered at any point during the entire game’s release to the outcome of a WvW match is defending ascended, so be it.

You want a level playing field? Play sPvP. I’m done being insulted by people who can’t fathom that numbers only matter when you get hit, and that the whole point of GW2 combat is to not get hit.

Also, where’s all the evidence showing us how much of an effect the gear has in real combat? Have we all just decided that higher numbers = massive advantage without any evidence?

Eisberg and I have killed ascended weapon having opponents 1v1, but that doesn’t count apparently.

Mackdose.6504:

Ashen.2907:

I know the question was not directed at me, but here goes anyway.

phys.7689:

Did you actually enjoy WvW before?

Yes. Quite a bit actually.

phys.7689:

if you did, i really doubt youd stop because of ascended gear…

Your doubt would be misplaced (in my case at least).

And why? Because now you can’t be secure that you lost because the other player was better?

In response to our two questions (in reverse order)

2) I could not be certain that my losses in a 1 v 1 situation (a relatively rare but very fun occurance IMO) could be contributed to comparable player skill before. Is his class superior ? Is his class just better suited to 1 v1 ? Is his spec superior ? Is his spec just better suited to 1 v1 ? Is his internet connection better ? Were my key skills on cooldown when the fight started? Did I make a mistake (I do not consider making a mistake to be an indication of overall skill, but it can certainly affect the outcome of a fight). There are too many variables for me to make an assumption such as you seem to be suggesting.

1) Why ? Because I do not enjoy playing a game at max level with less than max level gear.

morrolan.9608:

LHound.8964:

If you do the math using the calculators, statistically the difference on a berserker gear (weapon + trinkets) ascended vs exotics is ~ 6%. in Condition gears the difference is way less!

And others have calculated the difference to around 13% which is significant.

They’re comparing straight stats between the items themselves and not the actual impact it has on the player.

A year from now this argument will be negligible as everyone will have ascended. It’s been a year now and most people have ascended trinkets for all of their toons.

Ashen.2907:

Mackdose.6504:

Ashen.2907:

I know the question was not directed at me, but here goes anyway.

phys.7689:

Did you actually enjoy WvW before?

Yes. Quite a bit actually.

phys.7689:

if you did, i really doubt youd stop because of ascended gear…

Your doubt would be misplaced (in my case at least).

And why? Because now you can’t be secure that you lost because the other player was better?

In response to our two questions (in reverse order)

2) I could not be certain that my losses in a 1 v 1 situation (a relatively rare but very fun occurance IMO) could be contributed to comparable player skill before. Is his class superior ? Is his class just better suited to 1 v1 ? Is his spec superior ? Is his spec just better suited to 1 v1 ? Is his internet connection better ? Were my key skills on cooldown when the fight started? Did I make a mistake (I do not consider making a mistake to be an indication of overall skill, but it can certainly affect the outcome of a fight). There are too many variables for me to make an assumption such as you seem to be suggesting.

1) Why ? Because I do not enjoy playing a game at max level with less than max level gear.

I understand answer 1, and answer 2 is my entire argument for leaving WvW as is.

There are just too many variables in any given WvW fight to determine that gear and gear alone made a difference to the outcome.

I’d go as far to say that it doesn’t, ever.

Mackdose.6504:

So I saw a couple of posts that basically accused me of defending Ascended items to keep my privileged advantaged status.

Well, I don’t have any ascended items. I’m pretty casual (337 play hours/423 days) and don’t even have full exotics. So that argument is pretty much DOA.

If coming out and saying that gear hasn’t really mattered at any point during the entire game’s release to the outcome of a WvW match is defending ascended, so be it.

You want a level playing field? Play sPvP. I’m done being insulted by people who can’t fathom that numbers only matter when you get hit, and that the whole point of GW2 combat is to not get hit.

Also, where’s all the evidence showing us how much of an effect the gear has in real combat? Have we all just decided that higher numbers = massive advantage without any evidence?

Eisberg and I have killed ascended weapon having opponents 1v1, but that doesn’t count apparently.

Yeah yeah, we already know you think higher statistics don’t make a difference. And you can’t dodge everything.

As for your 1v1 kills, prove it. Eisberg said he did it at level 35. Again, prove it.

phys.7689:

you dont need 5 months.

It was a hypothetical period given for gearing up a character fully in ascended with 5 weapons.

The principle remains I would have to spend whatever period it is grinding for mats or grinding for gold for those mats given the price of every single mat required has gone up to silly levels.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

phys.7689:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

You guys have fun then.

I honestly don’t understand why people who want vertical progression and power creep came to Guild Wars 2 of all games. There are several other games out there that would meet your needs.

I think ANet lost a lot of their fans they gained through GW1 by making this move. I certainly won’t be playing WvW AT ALL because of ascended gear.

Did you actually enjoy WvW before? if you did, i really doubt youd stop because of ascended gear, the game mode still plays the same. And the gameplay type there isnt duplicated much. I mean, its always been unfair based on gear/time. I remember when the game started, people worked super hard for exotics.
42k karma per peice.
at 370 karma per event, and 5 min per event, thats 9 hours per piece. (didnt have all those karma items back then)

tokens were pretty rare, and exotic armor costs 950 for a set, for a hint back then people spent 1-2 weeks getting 500 badges for legendaries
so you are looking at 3-4 weeks to gear from tokens

dungeons, used to take about 25-45 minutes (dev said 40 min was their target for average players and 30 for good players) it started out giving less than 60, i think it was 45, and you need 1380 for a full set, thats about 30 runs at 45 tokens, and 23 runs at 60 tokens. at 40 min per run, that would be 15 hours of dungeon running.

Point is, Exotics were pretty hard to get at start too, if you look at the controlled means of getting exotics, and times to obtain them, you see it was never meant to be as easy as it is now. And people could make the same argument people make now about ascended giving an advantage.

Got it. It’s always been unfair, so let’s make it even more unfair and make people grind out BiS gear doing the most mind numbingly boring crafting tasks ever designed.
Which doesn’t matter anyway I guess because I don’t have any gold because I don’t farm or grind and I’m not about to spend real money to craft this ascended “we couldn’t provide with you real content so here’s some busywork” tier.

i personally think they should have made the final ascended weapons/armor be able to be mystic forged from things you can buy on the TP. nobody should be required to craft to get best in slot thats not random (i do feel crafting should be the main means of creating the parts) I also think they can add other methods that use a vision crystal, (make vision crystal mystic forgeble as well) and put some other methods attached to it (though these should be more work than crafting)

Basically you should be able to make ascended by doing the activities that give empyreal, bloodstone, and dragonite, and skill points and using that and some other resource, get an ascended you want. If the final recipe/vision crystal was mystic forge, you could do that with gold+ what i mentioned before. But it should still be based on the effort of the player, and it should probably still take a bit of doing things like taking keeps, castles and camps to get this gear (this is how you get it in WvW) only dragonite is an issue in WvW.

really what im getting at, is if the idea of someone beating you because they do 5%(the difference from a weapon specifically) more dmg than you then you will hate wvw, Any time WvW comes down to a fair fight between people, its usually because of an error in planning.
you place and reinforce seige so the fight wont be fair in your keep
you organize and scout so fights wont be fair when you attack
you fight larger groups with less, when you believe that their lack of skill or poor tactical choices will allow you to overcome.
you portal in 30 people when 15 were attacking your tower.

the idea of one on one fairness is just not relevant in WvW

Bastien.1645:

I believe Ascended gear should be removed from PvP. It creates the typical “Grind to Win” scenario that is so common in other MMO/Games.

I feel that Arena Net created an amazing PvP game with Guild Wars 1 and they should stick to how things were run. I also predict a very certain power creep for Melee classes like Warriors/Thiefs who benefit so much from weapon power as opposed to classes like Mesmers/Necromancers, this will create a distinct imbalance between these classes that will be compensated by 1) Nerfing the Warrior/Thief/Guardian/Ranger and effectively screwing players who don’t have Ascended armor on these characters; OR 2) Not nerfing them and creating a huge gap in power between “Physical DPS” classes and “Magic” users.

WvWvW players like to PvP, but any PvP’er will do everything in their power to achieve an advantage over the enemy, the important thing for most PvP players is winning (yes they have fun too but winning is the most important), pretty soon we will have fully ascended players in WvWvW which will make it unplayable for people who don’t have hundreds of hours to dedicate to a single character in order to equip them with full ascended armor, I believe the weapons cost 200g each, the trinkets/accessories using Laurels would take almost a year to get and the back piece is not even available, and that’s assuming you do your daily every single day. Fractals should not be required to play PvP competitively.

WvWvW players already have to spend ~50+g on Runes + exotics to remain competitive, I believe that’s enough as you should naturally accumulate that gold levelling your character and doing a few dungeons along the way, a lot of people will say ascended armour makes no difference but if we assume both zergs are of equal skill, the zerg that is fully ascended will always beat the non ascended zerg that has 5-10% less stats, it’s the same thing as putting a level 80 zerg vs a upleveled zerg, which zerg do you think will win? And don’t get me started on roaming/sniping groups fully ascended vs non ascended people, in the law of averages, we have to assume everyone is at the same skill level so the person who is better geared will win. Could a pro player beat a fully ascended “newb”? Of course, but pro players a very rare and they don’t make up the average WvWvW in our realm. Heck, my realm is full of PvE players (Desolation) so if anything Ascended gear is awesome as the sheer power of these people will carry me but I still believe these items should not be implemented in this game mode.

Solution: It’s simple, just scale Ascended gear to Exotic stat level upon entering a Borderland. I believe fair play should be encouraged and “grind to win/pay to win” (crafting) should not be encourage or allowed in PvP, this is not World of Warcraft and I believe the fair play/balanced gear model from Guild Wars 1 was perfect and it should be encouraged not scrapped. If I wanted to go “3 Shot noobs with overpowered gear” I’d go back to WoW and grind RBGs to 2200.

Regards,
Bastien

WvW is NOT classed as PvP, I do see your point however but but then again they would need to remove all ascended gear, all foods, all backpacks (cos not everyone has one or rare one etc). They would also need to fix uplevels giving them full skill points to unlock their skills and allow them to use level 80 gear. Also they would need to fix skill/game lag due to their useage of old gw1 servers in gw2, remove all bugs and exploits and balance all classes, as well as removing Legendarys weps. And after they’ve done all that they then need to ban all players with good pings and cpu’s etc. None of which they will ever do as well we all know.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Mackdose.6504:

So I saw a couple of posts that basically accused me of defending Ascended items to keep my privileged advantaged status.

Well, I don’t have any ascended items. I’m pretty casual (337 play hours/423 days) and don’t even have full exotics. So that argument is pretty much DOA.

If coming out and saying that gear hasn’t really mattered at any point during the entire game’s release to the outcome of a WvW match is defending ascended, so be it.

You want a level playing field? Play sPvP. I’m done being insulted by people who can’t fathom that numbers only matter when you get hit, and that the whole point of GW2 combat is to not get hit.

Also, where’s all the evidence showing us how much of an effect the gear has in real combat? Have we all just decided that higher numbers = massive advantage without any evidence?

Eisberg and I have killed ascended weapon having opponents 1v1, but that doesn’t count apparently.

Yeah yeah, we already know you think higher statistics don’t make a difference. And you can’t dodge everything.

As for your 1v1 kills, prove it. Eisberg said he did it at level 35. Again, prove it.

BRB, frapsing, editing, compressing, and uploading just to be told that it didn’t count.

No, I’m not doing that.

Here’s what I’m hearing from you: Higher numbers makes a huge (20% percent!) difference in every combat scenario! Prove me wrong! YOU CAN’T!

phys.7689:

Point is, Exotics were pretty hard to get at start too, if you look at the controlled means of getting exotics, and times to obtain them, you see it was never meant to be as easy as it is now.

Quotes from anet before launch show otherwise AND they pretty quickly implemented means of obtaining karma after launch that allowed players to quickly gear up from the Orr temples as soons as they hit 80.

Mackdose.6504:

Eisberg and I have killed ascended weapon having opponents 1v1, but that doesn’t count apparently.

No offense sir, but no it does not count.

Anecdotal examples are not evidence of statistical performance.

Was his skill level comparable to yours ?
Was his build comparable to yours in terms of 1 v1 performance ?
Was his internet connection comparable to yours ?
Were any of his key skills on cooldown ?
Was his endurance bar at all depleted at the beginning of the fight ?
etc.

I mean a glass bottle filled with gasoline has defeated a tank in the past, would you be inclined to go one on one with a tank armed only with a bottle of gasoline based on such an example ?

I beat a competitive chess player once. Not sure I would want to count on that as an example proving that one does not need to know how to play the game in order to beat someone who has spent years studying it.

Again, I see your point. Skill is very important to performance in GW2. That does not mean that the numbers behind character performance are not also a determining factor.

This thread is just a hellish repetition of the same meaningless slogans that don’t prove anything while stubbornly ignoring valid arguments.

It’s like I’m talking to my mom all over again.

Mackdose.6504:

Ashen.2907:

Mackdose.6504:

Ashen.2907:

I know the question was not directed at me, but here goes anyway.

phys.7689:

Did you actually enjoy WvW before?

Yes. Quite a bit actually.

phys.7689:

if you did, i really doubt youd stop because of ascended gear…

Your doubt would be misplaced (in my case at least).

And why? Because now you can’t be secure that you lost because the other player was better?

In response to our two questions (in reverse order)

2) I could not be certain that my losses in a 1 v 1 situation (a relatively rare but very fun occurance IMO) could be contributed to comparable player skill before. Is his class superior ? Is his class just better suited to 1 v1 ? Is his spec superior ? Is his spec just better suited to 1 v1 ? Is his internet connection better ? Were my key skills on cooldown when the fight started? Did I make a mistake (I do not consider making a mistake to be an indication of overall skill, but it can certainly affect the outcome of a fight). There are too many variables for me to make an assumption such as you seem to be suggesting.

1) Why ? Because I do not enjoy playing a game at max level with less than max level gear.

I understand answer 1, and answer 2 is my entire argument for leaving WvW as is.

There are just too many variables in any given WvW fight to determine that gear and gear alone made a difference to the outcome.

I’d go as far to say that it doesn’t, ever.

I think that your final sentence goes too far, but you are entitled to your opinion. If one component of many cannot be the sole determening factor then skill cannot either.

Character performance is the sum of multiple constituent components. Gear is one. It contributes to the end result. Reduce its contribution and the end result is reduced. If you reduce the end result on one side of a formula without doing so on the other side then you have created an imbalance. That imbalance may not be, in every case, sufficient to offset other imbalances (such as one player being much more skilled than another) but the imbalance is still being created.

A game where skill is a component cannot balance that aspect (IMO). But it can at least attempt to avoid creating other imbalances to further exacerbate the matter.

phys.7689:

the idea of one on one fairness is just not relevant in WvW

Yes and players accept that but you should do everything you can to reduce factors that contribute to this inequality.

I think people need to realize that this whole thread is based off of the opinions of a player who is jealous they can’t have Ascended gear.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting good things. That should actually inspire the OP to actually go out and try to get his own BiS gear. Once that happens, a whole new world of Guild Wars 2 is opened up, and he can then experience the joys all of us have for this game.

Ashen.2907:

Mackdose.6504:

Eisberg and I have killed ascended weapon having opponents 1v1, but that doesn’t count apparently.

No offense sir, but no it does not count.

Anecdotal examples are not evidence of statistical performance.

Was his skill level comparable to yours ?
Was his build comparable to yours in terms of 1 v1 performance ?
Was his internet connection comparable to yours ?
Were any of his key skills on cooldown ?
Was his endurance bar at all depleted at the beginning of the fight ?
etc.

I mean a glass bottle filled with gasoline has defeated a tank in the past, would you be inclined to go one on one with a tank armed only with a bottle of gasoline based on such an example ?

I beat a competitive chess player once. Not sure I would want to count on that as an example proving that one does not need to know how to play the game in order to beat someone who has spent years studying it.

Again, I see your point. Skill is very important to performance in GW2. That does not mean that the numbers behind character performance are not also a determining factor.

Here are the determining factors in a fight from most to least influential:
Number of Participants
VoIP
Latency
Class
Level
Build
Skill
Passive buffs
Boons
Gear

Anyone going to argue with that list? Seems pretty common sense to me.

Numbers only matter when they actually come into play. I’ve been locked down so hard no gear would have saved me.

I also don’t buy the argument that it’s not alt friendly. When you decide that you want to make multiple characters at that moment in time you accept that you’re going to have to put in more effort to get them geared up than some one who only plays one character.

It’s a silly complaint to me that you want to play 8 different characters with 8 different builds each and do that with little to no effort in getting equipment to support said characters and builds.

Especially when exotic equipment is still perfectly viable in every part of the game except for high level fractals.

morrolan.9608:

phys.7689:

you dont need 5 months.

It was a hypothetical period given for gearing up a character fully in ascended with 5 weapons.

The principle remains I would have to spend whatever period it is grinding for mats or grinding for gold for those mats given the price of every single mat required has gone up to silly levels.

is it a hypothetical period that is actually accurate? I got about 400 empyreal fragments wayyyy too much bloodstone and like 60 skill point books doing mostly WvW this weekend, i also made about 20 gold from WvW alone. I can tell you right now, thats about 70% of what is needed to make an ascended weapon. I wasnt targeting ascended either. My guild mate got an ascended weapon crate from a rank up chest. so to get 1 weapon without luck your looking at like 4-5 days, or 20-25 days for 5 different weapons without grinding at all.

Now of course i may play more than you, so to really have this discussion, you kind of need some real numbers

id say if your goal is getting an ascended weapon you can probably get 1 per week if you play 12 hours a week through normal play. so probably 5 weeks to get 5 weapons if your taking it easy.

If you dont want to use the gold you earn in wvw on wvw, well then you just dont want to spend

Mackdose.6504:

Here are the determining factors in a fight from most to least influential:
Number of Participants
VoIP
Latency
Class
Level
Build
Skill
Passive buffs
Boons
Gear

Anyone going to argue with that list? Seems pretty common sense to me.

Numbers only matter when they actually come into play. I’ve been locked down so hard no gear would have saved me.

This does not address anything I stated in the quoted post.

Gear is one part of the formula. Choosing to purposefully introduce imbalance into such a situation is a bad idea IMO.

phys.7689:

id say if your goal is getting an ascended weapon you can probably get 1 per week if you play 12 hours a week through normal play. so probably 5 weeks to get 5 weapons if your taking it easy.

Normal game play.

Lets say I were to up your numbers to 20 hours per week of my normal gameplay (which includes zero crafting), how long do you think it would take to get five weapons ?

phys.7689:

id say if your goal is getting an ascended weapon you can probably get 1 per week if you play 12 hours a week through normal play. so probably 5 weeks to get 5 weapons if your taking it easy.

If you dont want to use the gold you earn in wvw on wvw, well then you just dont want to spend

I’ll say again I’m talking about them principle of it.

As for earning enough gold in WvW to buy those mats…… AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA

Ashen.2907:

Mackdose.6504:

Here are the determining factors in a fight from most to least influential:
Number of Participants
VoIP
Latency
Class
Level
Build
Skill
Passive buffs
Boons
Gear

Anyone going to argue with that list? Seems pretty common sense to me.

Numbers only matter when they actually come into play. I’ve been locked down so hard no gear would have saved me.

This does not address anything I stated in the quoted post.

Gear is one part of the formula. Choosing to purposefully introduce imbalance into such a situation is a bad idea IMO.

Here’s the thing though, the imbalance isn’t new. It made no change to the game play of WvW. Nothing changed except people’s reaction to the stat imbalance that’s always been there.

Why do people want to change WvW’s rule set now when it was like this before?

Also, the comparison that a molotov blew up a tank is intentionally exaggerating the difference between full exotic and full ascended, and this kind of hyperbole is why the threads get so heated.

People aren’t even using absolute numbers choosing instead to use percentages which mean nothing without knowing first what the percentage is of.

phys.7689:

the OP doesnt want progression, and he wants WvW to be fair. Its meant to not be fair. what part of 50 versus 10 people is fair? what part of 20 seige golems versus your door is balanced?

Yea it’s unbalanced, so lets just make an orbital ion cannon available for 400g. Why not! Makes perfect sense that because something is unbalanced they shouldn’t in any way strive to make it as balanced as possible. +1

morrolan.9608:

phys.7689:

the idea of one on one fairness is just not relevant in WvW

Yes and players accept that but you should do everything you can to reduce factors that contribute to this inequality.

not in wvw, WvW is basically about saying my inequalities can beat your inequalities. Servers hope that their off hour players can make back points they lost in primetime.
Prime servers hope they can spank players in primetime hard enough the points they lose in off time wont be enough

People get to pick the things they are good at, and see if that can lead to server sucess. The rich bastid tries to buy seige, and food trays, the observers play scouts, the zergers try to get high numbers and brute force it, the solo players try to get the best gear possible. The small groups work on small group tactics and coordination. WvW is about exploiting every thing your good at, and hoping in the end it makes your server win. One small advantage you can gain is your charcachter’s own personal growth, what skills it has, what gear it has, your own skill at controlling it. But it is one of the smaller advantages one can have in WvW. Just like being a martial arts expert wont help you much in vietnam.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

If the law of averages makes us assume both groups have the same skill level, then the law of averages makes us assume both groups have equal amounts of ascended gear.

can i downvote this somehow?

Aberrant.6749:

phys.7689:

the OP doesnt want progression, and he wants WvW to be fair. Its meant to not be fair. what part of 50 versus 10 people is fair? what part of 20 seige golems versus your door is balanced?

Yea it’s unbalanced, so lets just make an orbital ion cannon available for 400g. Why not! Makes perfect sense that because something is unbalanced they shouldn’t in any way strive to make it as balanced as possible. +1

Ascended gear isn’t an orbital ion cannon. It’s a slightly bigger stick. You still have to swing the stick.

Aberrant.6749:

phys.7689:

the OP doesnt want progression, and he wants WvW to be fair. Its meant to not be fair. what part of 50 versus 10 people is fair? what part of 20 seige golems versus your door is balanced?

Yea it’s unbalanced, so lets just make an orbital ion cannon available for 400g. Why not! Makes perfect sense that because something is unbalanced they shouldn’t in any way strive to make it as balanced as possible. +1

Exaggerating doesn’t help make your point. Ascended gear don’t unbalance the game any more than allowing level 2 players who don’t even have a full set of white gear into wvw does.

Yet no one complains when they have to fight an up level do they?

In fact you could make an argument that allowing up levels into wvw hurts it more than ascended gear does using all the same anti-ascended arguments presented in this thread.

But then I’m not sure why a game mode that allows any player in at any level using any mix of gear, build, and skill level that features fighting other players that can be any level using any mix of gear, build, and skill levels needs to be balanced. Let’s also not forget to mention that you may be facing equal numbers or might be outnumbered 10 to 1 at any given moment..

Yeah sounds like the definition of balance. Better get rid of ascended.

fellyn.5083:

Aberrant.6749:

phys.7689:

the OP doesnt want progression, and he wants WvW to be fair. Its meant to not be fair. what part of 50 versus 10 people is fair? what part of 20 seige golems versus your door is balanced?

Yea it’s unbalanced, so lets just make an orbital ion cannon available for 400g. Why not! Makes perfect sense that because something is unbalanced they shouldn’t in any way strive to make it as balanced as possible. +1

Exaggerating doesn’t help make your point. Ascended gear don’t unbalance the game any more than allowing level 2 players who don’t even have a full set of white gear into wvw does.

Yet no one complains when they have to fight an up level do they?

In fact you could make an argument that allowing up levels into wvw hurts it more than ascended gear does using all the same anti-ascended arguments presented in this thread.

I didn’t see anyone complain about WvW ranks either, and that has more of an effect than pink gear does. But hey! THAT GUY HAS PINK GEAR AND IS RUINING MY FUN!

Aberrant.6749:

phys.7689:

the OP doesnt want progression, and he wants WvW to be fair. Its meant to not be fair. what part of 50 versus 10 people is fair? what part of 20 seige golems versus your door is balanced?

Yea it’s unbalanced, so lets just make an orbital ion cannon available for 400g. Why not! Makes perfect sense that because something is unbalanced they shouldn’t in any way strive to make it as balanced as possible. +1

look at this way.
WvW isnt sport, its war. Its only supposed to be as fair as the servers make it. The only fair part about WvW is that everything that the otherside has, you have the same ability to get.
what you want is spvp, or for them to make GvG

You dont believe in advantages, but WvW is all about advantages. gear is one of the smallest advantages you can get in WvW. If this is a sticking point for you, you will hate WvW with a passion.

Mackdose.6504:

fellyn.5083:

Aberrant.6749:

phys.7689:

the OP doesnt want progression, and he wants WvW to be fair. Its meant to not be fair. what part of 50 versus 10 people is fair? what part of 20 seige golems versus your door is balanced?

Yea it’s unbalanced, so lets just make an orbital ion cannon available for 400g. Why not! Makes perfect sense that because something is unbalanced they shouldn’t in any way strive to make it as balanced as possible. +1

Exaggerating doesn’t help make your point. Ascended gear don’t unbalance the game any more than allowing level 2 players who don’t even have a full set of white gear into wvw does.

Yet no one complains when they have to fight an up level do they?

In fact you could make an argument that allowing up levels into wvw hurts it more than ascended gear does using all the same anti-ascended arguments presented in this thread.

I didn’t see anyone complain about WvW ranks either, and that has more of an effect than pink gear does. But hey! THAT GUY HAS PINK GEAR AND IS RUINING MY FUN!

If you haven’t seen anyone complaining about WvW ranks (especially guard killer/defense) you haven’t been paying attention.

gimmethegepgun.1284:

Mackdose.6504:

fellyn.5083:

Aberrant.6749:

phys.7689:

the OP doesnt want progression, and he wants WvW to be fair. Its meant to not be fair. what part of 50 versus 10 people is fair? what part of 20 seige golems versus your door is balanced?

Yea it’s unbalanced, so lets just make an orbital ion cannon available for 400g. Why not! Makes perfect sense that because something is unbalanced they shouldn’t in any way strive to make it as balanced as possible. +1

Exaggerating doesn’t help make your point. Ascended gear don’t unbalance the game any more than allowing level 2 players who don’t even have a full set of white gear into wvw does.

Yet no one complains when they have to fight an up level do they?

In fact you could make an argument that allowing up levels into wvw hurts it more than ascended gear does using all the same anti-ascended arguments presented in this thread.

I didn’t see anyone complain about WvW ranks either, and that has more of an effect than pink gear does. But hey! THAT GUY HAS PINK GEAR AND IS RUINING MY FUN!

If you haven’t seen anyone complaining about WvW ranks (especially guard killer/defense) you haven’t been paying attention.

Sorry, I just came back a couple weeks ago, so that would be accurate.

But where are those complaints on the WvW forum now? Now look at ascended gear.

If you play WvW enough, you should be drowning in ascended materials to the point that not making the gear is a matter of choice, not inability.

LHound.8964:

If you do the math using the calculators, statistically the difference on a berserker gear (weapon + trinkets) ascended vs exotics is ~ 6%. in Condition gears the difference is way less!

IMO the difference is quite neglectable for the rage we see in the forums towards Ascended gear (i have full exotics and i do just fine).

I’m more worried about players don’t using any consumables that boosts way more the damage than the said gears!

/cheers

I love how you give absolutely no justification for this claim at all, then continue on to bash others for disagreeing and asking for “data”. Ironic at best or plain hypocrisy, you can choose.

The difference has been looked at for the currently available ascended gear and there is quite a difference when actually looking at a build. Here is a post I made back in this thread…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Ascended-vs-Exotic-Math/first#post2872409

regarding the currently available ascended gear…

Vanthian.9267:

I will be looking at a Thief with a backstab damage build.
20/30/0/0/20

Traits to consider in damage calculation:
Dagger Trainger: 5% damage
Executioner: 20% damage below 50% health
Flanking Strikes: 5% damage when attacking from back/sides

Constants:
Light Armor: 1836 (no added toughness what so ever)
Medium Armor: 1980 (no added toughness what so ever)
Heavy Armor: 2127 (no added toughness what so ever)
Skill Coefficient: 1.2 if hit from the front
2.4 if hit from the back/side

Exotics:
When using all berserker and all ruby orbs and a completely damage build for Thief:

Weapon Damage: 924-981
Power: 2089 without food buffs or bloodlust or might
3156 with food buffs and 25 might but without bloodlust
Critical Chance: 63.24 without fury or food buffs
66.57 with food buffs without fury
Critical Damage: 86%

Standard Damage of Backstab on target without Critical hit: (all will assume max Weapon damage/Skill Coefficient)

Light Armor: No Food Buffs/Might/Bloodlust
Damage: ( 981 × 2089 × 2.4 ) / 1836 = 2,678.835
With Food Buffs/Might but NO BLOODLUST
Damage: ( 981 × 3156 × 2.4 ) / 1836 = 4,047.105

What if we critical? Critical Damage is +86% on the normal 150% so we have 236% damage. Without buffs would be…
2,678.835 × 236% = 6,322.051
With Fodd buffs and such…
4,047.105 × 236% = 9,551.168

ASCENDED

Same set up only with ascended trinkets, back, ring, amulet and weapon.

Weapon Damage: 970-1030
Power: 2309 without food buffs or bloodlust or might
3376 with food buffs and 25 might but without bloodlust
Critical Chance: 69.24 without fury or food buffs
72.57 with food buffs without fury
Critical Damage: 112%

Standard Damage of Backstab on target without Critical hit: (all will assume max Weapon damage/Skill Coefficient)

Light Armor: No Food Buffs/Might/Bloodlust
Damage: ( 1,030 × 2,309 × 2.4 ) / 1836 = 3,108.849
With Food Buffs/Might but NO BLOODLUST
Damage: ( 1,030 × 3,376 × 2.4 ) / 1836 = 4,545.464

What if we critical? Critical Damage is +112% on the normal 150% so we have 262% damage. Without buffs would be…
3,108.849 × 262% = 8,145.184
With Fodd buffs and such…
4,545.464 × 262% = 11,909.115

Comparing the two:
Exotic with buffs & critical: 9,551.168
Ascended with buffs & Critical: 11,909.115

Percentage damage higher? 9,551.168/11,090.115 = 0.861
Then 1 – 0.861 = 0.139 which is…..

13.9% difference in damage when buffed and landing a critical hit on a light armor target with no extra defense when welding currently available Ascended items over Exotics.

Also, please note I did not take into account the trait damage multipliers since they are the same with or without Ascended gear.

You can follow the above to figure out any of the other armors types or whatever you choose. I also done this very quickly so my numbers might be a little off, but I do believe them to be accurate.

Have fun!

Please note I mistakenly took marginal gain (aka viewing from the top down) at the end when comparing the two critical hits together. I should have looked at the pure damage gain (aka viewing from the bottom up, because that is where we are heading).

Roughly saying, if you are looking at going from Exotics to Ascended Gear (weapons, trinkets, back, rings, pendent) you are looking at roughly a 16% increase raw damage. While viewing it from Ascended to Exotics you only lose roughly 13% of your damage.

Hope this helps and best of luck.

Pariah.8506:

eisberg.2379:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Aphix.9846:

Ascended items have such a little effect in wvw lol, if you lose a 1v1 or whatever it’s because you messed up or you’re just bad. The chances that the few extra stats could have made a difference is really kittening low lol, be realistic here, also they’re pretty easy to get anyway, trinkets especially.

Really ?

If it doesn’t make a difference then why are people wasting their lives grinding away for it?

Because they can and like every bit of +stats they can get, even if it is a little and doesn’t really matter nearly as much as skill. Also, what can be considered as grinding is very subjective. What you call “wasting their lives grinding” another can call it just playing the game doing the things they enjoy and having fun. I don’t have any ascended, not even level 80 yet, but I researched the what it takes to get them, and I can say that I will get the ascended gear buy doing the fun things I am doing now. Sure it will take time, but i will be having fun playing the game and I will end up with ascended gear/weapons by just playing the game and having fun, therefore it is not a grind to get that stuff.

Do you work for the Ministry of Truth?

sooo, can’t come up with any other rebuttal other than an insult? I’ll take that I made a good valid point.

Vanthian.9267:

Please note I mistakenly took marginal gain (aka viewing from the top down) at the end when comparing the two critical hits together. I should have looked at the pure damage gain (aka viewing from the bottom up, because that is where we are heading).

I notice another error there: at the end when you divide them, you mistakenly put in the wrong number for the ascended damage (11,090.115 instead of 11,909.115 like it should have been), which makes it an even bigger disparity.

Tongku.5326:

Bastien.1645:

I believe Ascended gear should be removed from PvP. It creates the typical “Grind to Win” scenario that is so common in other MMO/Games.

I feel that Arena Net created an amazing PvP game with Guild Wars 1 and they should stick to how things were run. I also predict a very certain power creep for Melee classes like Warriors/Thiefs who benefit so much from weapon power as opposed to classes like Mesmers/Necromancers, this will create a distinct imbalance between these classes that will be compensated by 1) Nerfing the Warrior/Thief/Guardian/Ranger and effectively screwing players who don’t have Ascended armor on these characters; OR 2) Not nerfing them and creating a huge gap in power between “Physical DPS” classes and “Magic” users.

WvWvW players like to PvP, but any PvP’er will do everything in their power to achieve an advantage over the enemy, the important thing for most PvP players is winning (yes they have fun too but winning is the most important), pretty soon we will have fully ascended players in WvWvW which will make it unplayable for people who don’t have hundreds of hours to dedicate to a single character in order to equip them with full ascended armor, I believe the weapons cost 200g each, the trinkets/accessories using Laurels would take almost a year to get and the back piece is not even available, and that’s assuming you do your daily every single day. Fractals should not be required to play PvP competitively.

WvWvW players already have to spend ~50+g on Runes + exotics to remain competitive, I believe that’s enough as you should naturally accumulate that gold levelling your character and doing a few dungeons along the way, a lot of people will say ascended armour makes no difference but if we assume both zergs are of equal skill, the zerg that is fully ascended will always beat the non ascended zerg that has 5-10% less stats, it’s the same thing as putting a level 80 zerg vs a upleveled zerg, which zerg do you think will win? And don’t get me started on roaming/sniping groups fully ascended vs non ascended people, in the law of averages, we have to assume everyone is at the same skill level so the person who is better geared will win. Could a pro player beat a fully ascended “newb”? Of course, but pro players a very rare and they don’t make up the average WvWvW in our realm. Heck, my realm is full of PvE players (Desolation) so if anything Ascended gear is awesome as the sheer power of these people will carry me but I still believe these items should not be implemented in this game mode.

Solution: It’s simple, just scale Ascended gear to Exotic stat level upon entering a Borderland. I believe fair play should be encouraged and “grind to win/pay to win” (crafting) should not be encourage or allowed in PvP, this is not World of Warcraft and I believe the fair play/balanced gear model from Guild Wars 1 was perfect and it should be encouraged not scrapped. If I wanted to go “3 Shot noobs with overpowered gear” I’d go back to WoW and grind RBGs to 2200.

Regards,
Bastien

Wall of text and no. Its fine as it is.

It is a little bit grindy getting a skill to 500, but its very easy, focused on gathering (mining, chopping) rather then other types of grinding.

I play wvw a lot, much more so then pve. I would say 75% of my income is wvw, remaining 25% all else. Currently my Artifice, Weaponsmith, and Huntsman are all at 500. So far I have crafted 7 ascended weapons. My main has 4 (includinf underwater) and my alts 1 each. At the current rate I will have minimum 1 ascended weapon per alt (6 alts) and a full set on my main in about 3 weeks or so.

I have a job, a life etc. and do not spend 16 out of 24 hours in the game. Vast majority of people I play with are likewise.

Based on my own experience, let me ask you a question.

Why should we be punished by Y O U R lack of ability or willingness and have our ascended weapons removed ? You do not represent majority of playerbase, in fact you represent a very vocal but incapable minority.

Getting ascended weapons is a leisurely PvE activity. You do have to plan it a little bit though. Basically move your mouse cursor over stuff in the game, read descriptions, come to conclusions and follow a plan you set for yourself. Gathering the mats takes me roughly 15 minutes a day, sometimes I go 30-45 minutes if I skip a few days and kill a world boss or 2.

This stuff is so incredibly easy and just happens by itself over time that I cant understand how can anyone be stupid enough not to get it.

YOUR complaint has no merit, and you falsely assume that you represent everyone, you do not.

wow this really makes me with i could down vote this is just being condescending and insulting who upvotes this stuff ? reported this

TooBz.3065:

I love how everyone says skill > gear until you try to take theirs away.

Gear > skill.

Just take on any uplevel ever.

I am not even a level 80 (use my level 35 for WvWvW), have taken on plenty of ascended carrying players who tried to beat me and I still beat them, always close fights. Also have been beat by plenty of ascended carrying players and still the fights were close.

So yes, Skill over Gear, and this is coming from a level 35 wearing Fine gear.

Ashen.2907:

Mackdose.6504:

Eisberg and I have killed ascended weapon having opponents 1v1, but that doesn’t count apparently.

No offense sir, but no it does not count.

Anecdotal examples are not evidence of statistical performance.

Was his skill level comparable to yours ?
Was his build comparable to yours in terms of 1 v1 performance ?
Was his internet connection comparable to yours ?
Were any of his key skills on cooldown ?
Was his endurance bar at all depleted at the beginning of the fight ?
etc.

I mean a glass bottle filled with gasoline has defeated a tank in the past, would you be inclined to go one on one with a tank armed only with a bottle of gasoline based on such an example ?

I beat a competitive chess player once. Not sure I would want to count on that as an example proving that one does not need to know how to play the game in order to beat someone who has spent years studying it.

Again, I see your point. Skill is very important to performance in GW2. That does not mean that the numbers behind character performance are not also a determining factor.

Never said that it wouldn’t make a difference, just saying that it is unlikely to make a difference. There are so many things that have to line up equally to for ascended gear to make the difference between winning and losing, and you named several of them in your post.

phys.7689:

You dont believe in advantages, but WvW is all about advantages. gear is one of the smallest advantages you can get in WvW. If this is a sticking point for you, you will hate WvW with a passion.

Well I don’t.

Substance E.4852:

If you play WvW enough, you should be drowning in ascended materials to the point that not making the gear is a matter of choice, not inability.

Not dragonite ore. And the mats are more than just the dust, ore and shards, you need 5 types of wood and ore etc etc.

fellyn.5083:

Aberrant.6749:

phys.7689:

the OP doesnt want progression, and he wants WvW to be fair. Its meant to not be fair. what part of 50 versus 10 people is fair? what part of 20 seige golems versus your door is balanced?

Yea it’s unbalanced, so lets just make an orbital ion cannon available for 400g. Why not! Makes perfect sense that because something is unbalanced they shouldn’t in any way strive to make it as balanced as possible. +1

Exaggerating doesn’t help make your point.

Yes… I think it did actually…

fellyn.5083:

I also don’t buy the argument that it’s not alt friendly. When you decide that you want to make multiple characters at that moment in time you accept that you’re going to have to put in more effort to get them geared up than some one who only plays one character.

It’s a silly complaint to me that you want to play 8 different characters with 8 different builds each and do that with little to no effort in getting equipment to support said characters and builds.

Especially when exotic equipment is still perfectly viable in every part of the game except for high level fractals.

It goes beyond that. One player talked about how the ascended gear is unreasonable to get because he needs 47 different weapons all together for all his characters each having more then 1 build, and that it would take 2 years to get all those weapons, many posters agree with that notion. When you figure out the math, it was like ~ 2 weeks per weapon. So apparently even taking 2 weeks to get a weapon is to much work.

eisberg.2379:

Never said that it wouldn’t make a difference, just saying that it is unlikely to make a difference. There are so many things that have to line up equally to for ascended gear to make the difference between winning and losing, and you named several of them in your post.

So why do hardcore WvW players and guilds insist on playing in exotics instead of not caring?

morrolan.9608:

eisberg.2379:

Never said that it wouldn’t make a difference, just saying that it is unlikely to make a difference. There are so many things that have to line up equally to for ascended gear to make the difference between winning and losing, and you named several of them in your post.

So why do hardcore WvW players and guilds insist on playing in exotics instead of not caring?

I think insisting on exotics is pretty convincing that it doesn’t make a difference to them.