For a guy that has a lot of alts and enjoys constant changing of builds, ascended gear is a game killer. This gear is conceptually opposite to everything Anet built so far for our characters. It is so single-minded in its purpose that Anet can freely scrap all trait lines since you won’t be seeing much of these if you plan on equipping your characters with full ascended, which will btw be required of you. The message is clear: As much as most of us hate it, ascended is here to stay, and I don’t think this will change. What can be changed is level of flexibility to make it more accessible and less of an annoyance.
I think it’d be far more productive to offer suggestions to this problem than to constantly complain about how bad ascended weaps are (and they are design atrocity imo)
1. Bring stats back in line with exotic gear BUT keep skin exclusivity. This suggestion goes in line with “play how you want” philosophy but also provides advantages to those who are willing to go for ascended stuff. Exclusivity part means that future cool skins will be ascended quality. This will make a shift from HAVE TO to WANT TO, and at the same time you are maintaining equal playing field.
2. Give ascended gear ability to switch stats like Leges. Currently making at least two full sets of ascended for 2 builds for a single char borders with insanity especially when they introduce armor. Legendary weaps will still have better skins and will still represent undisputed status symbol so no worries there. This should be nice piece of functionality to prevent ppl going braindead form all the grind required.
Please post your ideas if you have them but keep it constructive. Maybe we even lure a red post out of its lurk.