Guild Wars 2

Question here for Twitch broadcast tomorrow:

Previously, it was directly stated that there would not be an increase in the max level cap nor the coinciding gear in the HoT expansion, as doing so would create a gear treadmill in the game to acquire the best stats, and a more horizontal progression was desired going forward. With the most recent announcement of plans to tie stats wholly to the character base value and our equipment, I find myself with a lurching fear that this same effect will inadvertently be produced.

For example:

I currently run a Mesmer build of 2/6/0/6/0 for WvW zerg fighting, and I find the additional 3k hitpoints I get from those 6 points in Inspiration to be key to my survival in a good number of encounters. The gear I currently run is a combination of ascended berserker armor and ascended knights trinkets, none of which offers vitality, so I assume I will be effectively losing this extra survivability when HoT drops. Because of this, I foresee myself having to grind towards some new armor/trinket items of ascended quality to produce the same/similar results to the build I currently run.

So, my Q: Is any consideration being given to the fact that these changes to stats being tied more to equipment may effectively be creating a gear treadmill for veteran players who already have ascended armor/trinkets of armor/stat types that work for their current builds? If so, are there any plans in place to alleviate this potential grind, or will we be forced to acquire new equipment entirely should our previous build become unfeasible/lesser with the release of HoT?

Potential readers, I’m going to use this reply to brainstorm possible solutions/suggestions to my aforementioned worry. I’ll likely come back here throughout the day to edit this and put up any additional courses of action/solutions I can think of myself. Feel free to make suggestions as well, and I’ll include (with credit) any in this post I find feasible/interesting and have not thought of myself, on the off-chance that ArenaNet sees this forum thread and uses my question on the livestream – they may be open to our suggestions on this on the off-chance they have no solution, who knows?

• Offering a one-time stat change to ascended armor pieces
• Allowing a laurel refund of ascended trinkets equivalent to/slightly lesser than (to prevent people from buying from WvW and exchanging in PvE for higher laurel value) their value from the vendor
• Creating mystic forge recipes to change ascended armor/trinkets into others at a cheaper cost than outright buying/crafting new pieces
• (A bit far-fetched, seeing how it’s similar to what we’re losing) Forget the stat-boost to equipment/base values, allowing players to allocate the difference in stats lost from this change themselves (i.e. allow a system similar to the current trait system we have to exist, but it only applies to stat bonuses, offering potential boosts up to what we’re losing, only with the ability to spread points more diversely due to traits not being tied in with them)
• (Also a bit out there) Creating a new trinket slot, with the stats on the items for this slot equivalent to values lost (i.e. supposing we’re losing 300 in all traits – a likely underestimation – the trinket could have values of +100 X stat, +100 X stat, and +100 X stat)
• Create a gold standard for ascended armor (i.e. merge all sets into one), and allow players to switch the stats on ascended armor anytime outside of combat at will (If this is done – I doubt it will be – please, please, PLEASE make it so we could socket runes into our ascended armor and swap between the sets socketed into pieces at will. And if this is done, do the same thing for legendaries, because I honestly don’t see why we can swap the weapon stats on these but not the sigils. A Twilight with a sigil of hydromancy can work great in WvW warrior solo-roaming, but it serves little-to-no purpose in a PvE setting, and having to swap sigils back and forth between this and a sigil of force is a bit expensive/unrealistic)
• Allow some form of recycling potential on Ascended armor/weapons, possibly either through kit or a npc, offering a percentage amount of the materials required in the crafting process (possible return rate of somewhere between 75-90% of the cost? Possibly return all materials needed except the inscription/insignia used in that recipe, since one could assume the only reason you’d do this would be to change the stat type of that item, for which the previous insignia/inscription is not needed?)

Alright, well. That’s all I’ve got for now. Heading out to work. Feel free to take over my thread, as I see you folks have already done. =P

Personally, I’m the most in favor of one of the ones I see them being the least likely to implement… I’d really like to see the choice of stat allocation without the crushing restriction of traits attached to it, but it seems like ArenaNet specifically wanted to move away from this, thus the choice of tying these previously-chosen stats into armor. But hey, maybe that’s just the portion of me opposed to change. Who could say?

Considering I use a Zerk+Soldier combo on Thief I probably won’t be effected too much since the power, toughness and hp I get from traits will all go to armor~ I lose a bunch of healing power and condi dmg from traits.. I guess I could put on a single ring to regain that~ I guess min/matching with ascended trinkets will be a main aspect since changing armor/weapon stats isn’t really possible, realistically, as it’s a massive amount of gold and inventory space. Not sure whats going to happen with steal and condi duration from traits…

If they want us to craft (because farming drops simply doesnt work) multiple sets of Ascended equipment it’d be nice if we could save builds that bound our Equipment to the UI, because even with max inventory space unlocked + largest bags thats a massive amount of space used up. We can’t even buy more space for it.

swap a couple trinkets from knight → soldier
swap 1 other trinket from knight → zerk

there, you get your 300 vit, keep your damage, and keep your toughness.

Legerdemain.1365:

• (A bit far-fetched, seeing how it’s similar to what we’re losing) Forget the stat-boost to equipment/base values, allowing players to allocate the difference in stats lost from this change themselves (i.e. allow a system similar to the current trait system we have to exist, but it only applies to stat bonuses, offering potential boosts up to what we’re losing, only with the ability to spread points more diversely due to traits not being tied in with them)

i think this would be by far the best solution

Question for the Q&A:

Where will Boon Duration and Condition Duration go?

Will they only be available on future armor sets? Will they be tacked on to existing armor sets? If they are tacked on, will that lower the other stats on the set to compensate?