Guild Wars 2

As the ascended weapons will be introduced and legendaries are getting boost to not be left behind, the fate of exotics looks rather bleak. I think I don’t need to remind that there are less and more valuable exotics out there. The fact that the crafted exotics will no longer be the best gear in game and therefore will be “useless” and forgotten is something that is somewhat understandable, but there are also many, MANY exotics which are really expensive and have beautiful, unique skins. Say, the “mists” weapons. Or the new weapons dropping from the champion bags. Or all the good stuff that you can get from the Mystic Forge. That’s the pinnacle of the game for me. Are they really meant to become worthless?

They won’t be useless per say.

The content we currently do, excluding FOTM, has been made with exotic gear in mind. Therefore it’s not really necessary to get ascended gear yet. If I didn’t upgrade to ascended, but you did, yes, you’d be better than me, but I can still do all the content as I did before. People will still use exotics, especially if ascended weapons cost A LOT. In that case as well, most people may only upgrade their main character.

I approve of this topic.

Many people have several exotic sets. For example, one of my 8 characters has a whisperer’s armor transmuted set (which includes the gemstore krytan coat), an aetherblade set, a duellist transmuted set (my settler stat set) a vatlaaw’s set, and a tier 2 transmuted norn set.

A set for every occasion (zerker set, knight’s set, settler set, karma set, condition set)

Should I now want the skins of these armors in the ascended version, I’d have to use 30 rare transmutation stones. And that’s just for just one of my 8 characters. That ain’t right.

Ascended Trinkets are 5% better than Exotics. Getting Ascended Trinkets isn’t even necessary if you aren’t planning on doing Fractals. What do you even want to do with 5% better Stats? WvW? It’s a big zerg, the 5% more Life, Damage or whatever won’t make a difference if the Weapons and Armor have the same Statistic improvement.

You don’t HAVE to get Ascended Gear if you DON’T WANT. There’s really no need. Yet.

It’s just the skins that make some exotics expensive. Just transmute it.

Gw2 logic.This armor has better stats all the armors that have kittenty stats are worthless and thrash.

Just like rares, ecto trash.

And instead 2 redundant tiers we will have 3. woohoo.

MikaHR.1978:

Just like rares, ecto trash.

So true.

I was hoping that when they introduced ascended armour/weapons, it would be a crafted component that upgraded your armour/weapon. I’m not looking forward to using so many rare transmute crystals for each character (assuming the new skin we say a preview of was an ascended weapon – rifle).

Justdeifyme.9387:

You don’t HAVE to get Ascended Gear if you DON’T WANT. There’s really no need. Yet.

How long before that changes?

I’ve put all plans for making any exotic armor for my alts on hold, as Ascended armor in obviously in the pipeline. I also decided against buying any gemstore armor skins until Ascended armor is added.

Imagine that ascended > exotics, would be the same as exotic > rare for example..
if I want build variety or alts, I can only use rare(exotics).
I can only choose 1 stats combination that I can use for the rest of my time with my 1 character with exotics(ascended) because of the nature of how I get it, with time gates.
won’t be that bad,.. but I will play with sub-optimal stats most of the time!

Rifky.9321:

As the ascended weapons will be introduced and legendaries are getting boost to not be left behind, the fate of exotics looks rather bleak. I think I don’t need to remind that there are less and more valuable exotics out there. The fact that the crafted exotics will no longer be the best gear in game and therefore will be “useless” and forgotten is something that is somewhat understandable, but there are also many, MANY exotics which are really expensive and have beautiful, unique skins. Say, the “mists” weapons. Or the new weapons dropping from the champion bags. Or all the good stuff that you can get from the Mystic Forge. That’s the pinnacle of the game for me. Are they really meant to become worthless?

I remember when I started this game I thought to myself- one day when I am rich I will make some of those awesome weapons.
Well a year later I am still not rich but at least I made myself a matching set of Mystic weapons.
I really really don’t like the addition of Ascended armor and weapons and the implications.

It was one thing having Fractals and the required AR- but what exactly is the place of additional Ascended gear in PvE when people are already complaining that most of it is too easy?
Just for the sake of lulz?
Giving bored people some time gated numbers to chase?
Or are new content to be gated behind a time gated gear gate?

I would really like to know because as much as I love GW2, I don’t think I can take that.

Justdeifyme.9387:

Ascended Trinkets are 5% better than Exotics. Getting Ascended Trinkets isn’t even necessary if you aren’t planning on doing Fractals. What do you even want to do with 5% better Stats? WvW? It’s a big zerg, the 5% more Life, Damage or whatever won’t make a difference if the Weapons and Armor have the same Statistic improvement.

You don’t HAVE to get Ascended Gear if you DON’T WANT. There’s really no need. Yet.

It will not take long before ANet starts tuning new content to Ascended level gear. They’ll have to, or people will get bored. When that starts happening, there will be need, and people who don’t have Ascended will have to either skip the new content, or start grinding.

I don’t play GW2 to chase gear tiers; I’ve had enough of that in other games. I had hoped that Ascended weapons, like other promised announcements — the LFG tool, the fix to condition damage, and portals for non-mesmer classes — would never actually make it into the game. But it looks like they’re here now.

I had hoped ANet would get creative, and develop progression in the game that wasn’t reliant on gear tiers. Color me disappointed.

The question is how hard is it going to be to get the ascended weapon materials to craft with? if it’s something not so easy, then exotics are not going to go away anytime soon. You can still play with them at max level.

Spiral Architect.6540:

Justdeifyme.9387:

Ascended Trinkets are 5% better than Exotics. Getting Ascended Trinkets isn’t even necessary if you aren’t planning on doing Fractals. What do you even want to do with 5% better Stats? WvW? It’s a big zerg, the 5% more Life, Damage or whatever won’t make a difference if the Weapons and Armor have the same Statistic improvement.

You don’t HAVE to get Ascended Gear if you DON’T WANT. There’s really no need. Yet.

It will not take long before ANet starts tuning new content to Ascended level gear. They’ll have to, or people will get bored. When that starts happening, there will be need, and people who don’t have Ascended will have to either skip the new content, or start grinding.

I don’t play GW2 to chase gear tiers; I’ve had enough of that in other games. I had hoped that Ascended weapons, like other promised announcements — the LFG tool, the fix to condition damage, and portals for non-mesmer classes — would never actually make it into the game. But it looks like they’re here now.

I had hoped ANet would get creative, and develop progression in the game that wasn’t reliant on gear tiers. Color me disappointed.

I have the same fear, I don’t want this game to end up in a gear treadmill and I will be gone if there’s a sign of it. But I won’t leave until I really know how much better the Ascended Gear actually is, and if Anet plans to continue this bs.

Just as currently people skip the rares and jump from karma greens straight to exotics, they will in future try to jump to ascended. Perhaps they will use a cheap rare set (or exo karma temple set) as intermediary, but crafted, named and dungeon token exotics will go the way of the dodo. Weapons might be used in MF in an attempt to get precursors, though.

prenavo.3926:

The question is how hard is it going to be to get the ascended weapon materials to craft with? if it’s something not so easy, then exotics are not going to go away anytime soon. You can still play with them at max level.

You can play in greens if you want to.

Guess you can see redundancy of it now.

From what they said it will not be hard to get them (just like trinkets) but it will require lot of time.

If you plan of playing 1 character with 1 build thats cool. Something more – tough luck.

Yes well I like my alts and I like different builds- which is why I have stuck with exotic.
This is sooo pointless- it makes me want to kick whoever thought it was a good idea. Really hard

sazberryftw.3809:

They won’t be useless per say.
[SNIP]
People will still use exotics, especially if ascended weapons cost A LOT. In that case as well, most people may only upgrade their main character.

I feel the same way. I will work toward ascended for my two mains, but the rest of my Alts will just have to deal with exotics.

I’ve worked pretty hard to make sure all my alts have exotic weaps/armor and realy don’t see a need for them to have anything better.

I honestly don’t really see a need for my mains to have them either, except that I like to play fractals with both and will get them just for that purpose only. For PvE and WvW, what they have now is just fine.

ANet has said for a long time now that they screwed up by not having ascended stuff in game at launch. Ascended was always supposed to be there as a stepping stone from the easy-peasy exotics to the hard-as-all-F to get legendaries.

Any thoughts about gear treadmill rank up there with "what if they shut down all servers tomorrow!?!? OMGWTFburn-all-the-thingsGGto-the-forums-NOAW!!11!’

Spiral Architect.6540:

Justdeifyme.9387:

Ascended Trinkets are 5% better than Exotics. Getting Ascended Trinkets isn’t even necessary if you aren’t planning on doing Fractals. What do you even want to do with 5% better Stats? WvW? It’s a big zerg, the 5% more Life, Damage or whatever won’t make a difference if the Weapons and Armor have the same Statistic improvement.

You don’t HAVE to get Ascended Gear if you DON’T WANT. There’s really no need. Yet.

It will not take long before ANet starts tuning new content to Ascended level gear. They’ll have to, or people will get bored. When that starts happening, there will be need, and people who don’t have Ascended will have to either skip the new content, or start grinding.

I don’t play GW2 to chase gear tiers; I’ve had enough of that in other games. I had hoped that Ascended weapons, like other promised announcements — the LFG tool, the fix to condition damage, and portals for non-mesmer classes — would never actually make it into the game. But it looks like they’re here now.

I had hoped ANet would get creative, and develop progression in the game that wasn’t reliant on gear tiers. Color me disappointed.

A question here… other than high level fractals… what content have they introduced into the game that absolutely needs exotic or you can’t possibly complete at all?. Heck, I’ve even beaten most gauntlet bosses in a character that was mostly rare geared.

Justdeifyme.9387:

Ascended Trinkets are 5% better than Exotics. Getting Ascended Trinkets isn’t even necessary if you aren’t planning on doing Fractals. What do you even want to do with 5% better Stats? WvW? It’s a big zerg, the 5% more Life, Damage or whatever won’t make a difference if the Weapons and Armor have the same Statistic improvement.

You don’t HAVE to get Ascended Gear if you DON’T WANT. There’s really no need. Yet.

is this actually true. I mean i get 5% better stats but isnt that just one trinket versus another. For example if you have an exotic zerker ring the ascended version is 5% better. Add that up for all 6 trinkets and its alot more than just 5% unless im wrong :p

If I choose to acquire any of the Ascended weapons, etc. (as I almost certainly will for at least two of my characters) I will certainly want to retain the carefully selected look of certain weapons and Armor. I am sure Anet knows this will be a common practice and that they will reap a windfall in the sales of transmutation stones.

To phrase this another way, can you say Cha-Ching!

As for Exotics becoming Ecto trash, many will always be valuable for their skins. If Volcanus drops to 100 gold I’ll shocked, and Very Happy. If Exotic prices in general crash, that will be a blessing to new players who will be able to get really strong gear much cheaper. There is certainly a silver lining to this cloud, if it even is a cloud.

Champ – 6 × 100 = 600 and 6 × 105 = 630. 30/600 = 5%

well thats dissapointing

champ.7021:

Justdeifyme.9387:

Ascended Trinkets are 5% better than Exotics. Getting Ascended Trinkets isn’t even necessary if you aren’t planning on doing Fractals. What do you even want to do with 5% better Stats? WvW? It’s a big zerg, the 5% more Life, Damage or whatever won’t make a difference if the Weapons and Armor have the same Statistic improvement.

You don’t HAVE to get Ascended Gear if you DON’T WANT. There’s really no need. Yet.

is this actually true. I mean i get 5% better stats but isnt that just one trinket versus another. For example if you have an exotic zerker ring the ascended version is 5% better. Add that up for all 6 trinkets and its alot more than just 5% unless im wrong :p

If they keep the same stat increase across the board (it’s not out of the table for them to increase less or more for different bits of gear) you’d expect to see an increase of about 17% once all gear becomes ascended, assuming they don’t do something like introducing ascended jewels you can apply to exotic, for example.

For example, let’s do the math between Mark of Thethyos Houses (ascended amulet with berserker stats) Vs. a standard exotic berserker amulet

Berserker amulet + exquisite ruby jewel:
Power: 105
Presicion: 79
Crit Damage: 8%

Ascended amulet (omiting the fractional for ease of calculations):
Power: 126 – 20% increase
Prescion: 96 – 21% increase
Crit Damage: 9% – 12% increase
Average: 17%

So if every piece in average increases in 17% in stats, that’s the full amount you’d expect to see as an increase between a full exotic and a full ascended character.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Transmutation_Crystal

champ.7021:

Justdeifyme.9387:

Ascended Trinkets are 5% better than Exotics. Getting Ascended Trinkets isn’t even necessary if you aren’t planning on doing Fractals. What do you even want to do with 5% better Stats? WvW? It’s a big zerg, the 5% more Life, Damage or whatever won’t make a difference if the Weapons and Armor have the same Statistic improvement.

You don’t HAVE to get Ascended Gear if you DON’T WANT. There’s really no need. Yet.

is this actually true. I mean i get 5% better stats but isnt that just one trinket versus another. For example if you have an exotic zerker ring the ascended version is 5% better. Add that up for all 6 trinkets and its alot more than just 5% unless im wrong :p

You’re wrong. If every piece gives you a 5% upgrade, your overall stats from gear increase by 5%. Currently since there are only ascended trinkets, you get less than that 5% overall. Keep in mind as well that we start with 900ish base stats which aren’t affected by any upgrade so even a full set of all ascended gear will be less than a 5% stat gain (assuming 5% is the number, thought it might be 8%).

locoman.1974:

champ.7021:

Justdeifyme.9387:

Ascended Trinkets are 5% better than Exotics. Getting Ascended Trinkets isn’t even necessary if you aren’t planning on doing Fractals. What do you even want to do with 5% better Stats? WvW? It’s a big zerg, the 5% more Life, Damage or whatever won’t make a difference if the Weapons and Armor have the same Statistic improvement.

You don’t HAVE to get Ascended Gear if you DON’T WANT. There’s really no need. Yet.

is this actually true. I mean i get 5% better stats but isnt that just one trinket versus another. For example if you have an exotic zerker ring the ascended version is 5% better. Add that up for all 6 trinkets and its alot more than just 5% unless im wrong :p

If they keep the same stat increase across the board (it’s not out of the table for them to increase less or more for different bits of gear) you’d expect to see an increase of about 17% once all gear becomes ascended, assuming they don’t do something like introducing ascended jewels you can apply to exotic, for example.

For example, let’s do the math between Mark of Thethyos Houses (ascended amulet with berserker stats) Vs. a standard exotic berserker amulet

Berserker amulet + exquisite ruby jewel:
Power: 105
Presicion: 79
Crit Damage: 8%

Ascended amulet (omiting the fractional for ease of calculations):
Power: 126 – 20% increase
Prescion: 96 – 21% increase
Crit Damage: 9% – 12% increase
Average: 17%

So if every piece in average increases in 17% in stats, that’s the full amount you’d expect to see as an increase between a full exotic and a full ascended character.

You got the stats wrong for the amulets. It’s:

Power: 115
Precision: 79
Crit Damage: 8%

vs.

Power: 126
Precision: 85
Crit Damage: 9%

Calculating a % upgrade is also misleading, especially in the case of Crit Damage because it doesn’t account for the base value.

Role players will use them, but that’s it really.

I mean, if you’re going to play an Inquest Asura, you can’t exactly be using something else. You’re better off sticking to the Dark Asura Skins for CoE, or of you’re going to play as a Seraph, you’ll need to have Seraph weapons, otherwise noones gonna take you seriously.

Barring that, they’ll just be novelty design really.

Why do dungeons now: skin

Yaki.9563:

locoman.1974:

champ.7021:

Justdeifyme.9387:

Ascended Trinkets are 5% better than Exotics. Getting Ascended Trinkets isn’t even necessary if you aren’t planning on doing Fractals. What do you even want to do with 5% better Stats? WvW? It’s a big zerg, the 5% more Life, Damage or whatever won’t make a difference if the Weapons and Armor have the same Statistic improvement.

You don’t HAVE to get Ascended Gear if you DON’T WANT. There’s really no need. Yet.

is this actually true. I mean i get 5% better stats but isnt that just one trinket versus another. For example if you have an exotic zerker ring the ascended version is 5% better. Add that up for all 6 trinkets and its alot more than just 5% unless im wrong :p

If they keep the same stat increase across the board (it’s not out of the table for them to increase less or more for different bits of gear) you’d expect to see an increase of about 17% once all gear becomes ascended, assuming they don’t do something like introducing ascended jewels you can apply to exotic, for example.

For example, let’s do the math between Mark of Thethyos Houses (ascended amulet with berserker stats) Vs. a standard exotic berserker amulet

Berserker amulet + exquisite ruby jewel:
Power: 105
Presicion: 79
Crit Damage: 8%

Ascended amulet (omiting the fractional for ease of calculations):
Power: 126 – 20% increase
Prescion: 96 – 21% increase
Crit Damage: 9% – 12% increase
Average: 17%

So if every piece in average increases in 17% in stats, that’s the full amount you’d expect to see as an increase between a full exotic and a full ascended character.

You got the stats wrong for the amulets. It’s:

Power: 115
Precision: 79
Crit Damage: 8%

vs.

Power: 126
Precision: 85
Crit Damage: 9%

Calculating a % upgrade is also misleading, especially in the case of Crit Damage because it doesn’t account for the base value.

Thanks for the correction, I was using the % upgrade assuming it’s the average increase of stat budget around the board, which which is what I believe would be the general increase of stats between a fully exotic character and a fully ascended one. Your numbers put it closer to the 10% I’ve often heard..

I’d say it depends on

• How long it takes to get full Ascended armour and weapons.
• How Ascended are crafted; for all we know, our Exotic gear may very well be a component (like the Fractal backpiece)
• Whether armour or weapons have an Infusion slot alongside Rune / Sigil slots. If they don’t, I’ll be sticking with my Exotic gear.