Guild Wars 2

Normally I am impressed with Anets updates, and they have made an extraordinary amount of positive changes within the recent months.. In fact, I have waited this long to say anything because I have been trying to give it the benefit of the doubt. But, the loss of 900 stat points in traits and the customization it offered F***ING SUCKS.

I used to have the most amazing build with a mixture of celestial / zerker gear and I used the stat points from the traits lines to balance my character out and it encouraged me to retrait for different dungeons and situations allowing me to really feel like I was playing my character and utilizing my options.

Now, my toon is so squishy, so weak, and just completely not the same character AT ALL. I couldn’t even do AC last night without dying literally 20 times. When I consider changing my gear, I am faced with another extremely annoying dilemma. My runes of strength are worth 15 gold a piece now, so not only do I have to make 4 new pieces of ascended gear, but I have to buy 60 gold worth of runes that I already have because I can’t salvage ascended gear, changing the stats in forge destroys the upgrade, and those COMPLETELY worthless upgrade extractors would cost me 200 gold to buy and use… LMFAO. This is so upsetting I don’t even want to play anymore. Wish I could get a refund on this expansion that’s probably going to take another several months to come out. so over it. At this point I have no motivation to play at all until the expansion comes out or until they fix this somehow. I just pray that the expansion is worth it.

Can I have your stuff if you quit?

You could change your trinket to adapt your build. They are far cheaper.

I’m sorry but if you have a mix of zerker and celestial and your character is too squishy for you, then you are not a really good player. Why did you went after ascended gear if you didn’t master your profession yet? I mean AC is already super easy on an Elementalist in full zerker so I can’t imagine any profession with some celestial gear.

So….Thaddeus, trinkets are cheaper than traits? Clap clap.

“Full zerk or GTFO – zerk can do it so you suck”

Yeah, stop that, let the OP be upset. A bunch of all all had patch shock after we logged in and found our characters changed.

Skaven Zverov.2984:

So….Thaddeus, trinkets are cheaper than traits? Clap clap.

^Didn’t bother reading the OP. Clap Clap

Skaven Zverov.2984:

So….Thaddeus, trinkets are cheaper than traits? Clap clap.

Clap clap for not reading. Keyword: Runes.

@OP: if you die 20 times in AC, you should reconsider your playing style. It’s not even gears or traits at that point. Since most PvE are easier now (fractal 49 can be done in 30m easily now). I cant think of why a mix zerk, celestial and Strenght runes would be bad. Seem pretty meta.

Translation:
“Anet, I am deeply upset with your change that it caused me to angrily go off on you on the forums. I’m so distressed and angry I don’t even want to play anymore.

Now please take this $50 and gimme the expansion"

Thaddeus.4891:

Can I have your stuff if you quit?

You could change your trinket to adapt your build. They are far cheaper.

I’m sorry but if you have a mix of zerker and celestial and your character is too squishy for you, then you are not a really good player. Why did you went after ascended gear if you didn’t master your profession yet? I mean AC is already super easy on an Elementalist in full zerker so I can’t imagine any profession with some celestial gear.

Lol. My Ele is three years old and I’ve had my current gear setup for almost 2 years and never had a problem until this update. I feel that if anyone has mastered the profession it’s someone who can regularly and quickly retrait and switch points around for ultimate versatility and customization. The update screwed it, no doubt about it.

Skaven Zverov.2984:

So….Thaddeus, trinkets are cheaper than traits? Clap clap.

Thank you Skaven for understanding.

Zietlogik.6208:

Skaven Zverov.2984:

So….Thaddeus, trinkets are cheaper than traits? Clap clap.

^Didn’t bother reading the OP. Clap Clap

Yes, he read and understood my original post. Having switchable stat points was far superior to having to do it all through expensive gear changes and it added versatility and adaptability, without unnecessary costs or using up valuable bag slots for different gear.

Pickles.9436:

Translation:
“Anet, I am deeply upset with your change that it caused me to angrily go off on you on the forums. I’m so distressed and angry I don’t even want to play anymore.

Now please take this $50 and gimme the expansion"

As I said in my original post, I wish I could get back my $50. I’m afraid you mis-translated.

Uh he obviously could play his class before so stop with the insulting bs from the cheap seats. The ability to change your ascended armor is also garbage when the runes are all 12 plus gold now that I used on my 3 complete sets plus. I did not want to put 10s per runes on my ascended. This hit kitten us that ran hybrid builds, in my case, to throw off the thieves etc in WvW who know what you are going to do before you do it, especially if you are a ranger. It seems another attempt to vanilla all the builds at a great cost to a lot of us.

An obvious and easy fix for this would be to reinstate the customizable 900 stat points and simply make it separate from the traits. That way we can select traits and stats on the fly for true adaptibility and enjoyment,

Especially since Anet’s original logic in one of their patch announcements for removing those points was something like “The 300 stat points encouraged people to stick with certain trait lines based on those stat points instead of considering the actual skills.”

So separate them??? Don’t just kill off the customization of those selectable stat points!!!

Have you tried dodging attacks?

TheHeretic.3529:

Have you tried dodging attacks?

+100

On an honest not, the actual state of pve doesnt encourage playing properly, the only two cases you need to play good are solo/duo/similar, some speed runners premades and first times.

About the last: shamefully most guilds doesnt teach the none stack and glitched way to their newbies and impose the other way.

Or better yet, give everyone free promotional extractors and create Legendary gear for people to earn so people have something to do and can have truly selectable stats.

TheHeretic.3529:

Have you tried dodging attacks?

Dodging? What’s that?

Mag Wars.1689:

Lol. My Ele is three years old and I’ve had my current gear setup for almost 2 years and never had a problem until this update. I feel that if anyone has mastered the profession it’s someone who can regularly and quickly retrait and switch points around for ultimate versatility and customization. The update screwed it, no doubt about it.

You had no problem because you had plenty of defensive stats from you gear. Good players don’t want defensive stats, ordinary player can survive without defensive stats but prefer having some as a cushion, bad players NEED defensive stats to survive PvE, which is your case.

PvE is so freaking easy, that if you need defensive stats to survive, that should be your clue for not getting expensive ascended gear.

Anyway. All MMO need to change stuff up so the game can grow and get better. Removing stats from trait is something that needed to be done. There is mostly two way they could have done it. Like they did, which is easier to balance or allowing us to distribute our stats independently from traits. A bit like Diablo 2. But that method is harder to balance.

Each method have some pro and cons, but any change they will do to the game will kitten off some person and be applaud by other. Some change I don’t like, but I know other people that like it, while some changes I love, and some of my friends can’t stand.

And obviously I know how to play, and yes the squad did have a couple lower level noobs in it, but that should not be a problem… and my character is just simply not the same, has not been the same, since the update.

MMOs do generally evolve over time.

Happened to me a few times. I had divinity runes on 5 characters when Anet decided to make them useless.

Lucius.2140:

About the last: shamefully most guilds doesnt teach the none stack and glitched way to their newbies and impose the other way.

I couldn’t understand what you mean. Was it:
A: Shamefully most guilds don’t teach new people the glitched (exploits) ways to fight.
or
B: Shamefully most guilds teach new people the glitched (exploits) ways to fight.

I’m hoping you meant B.

Serge Azel.9145:

Lucius.2140:

About the last: shamefully most guilds doesnt teach the none stack and glitched way to their newbies and impose the other way.

I couldn’t understand what you mean. Was it:
A: Shamefully most guilds don’t teach new people the glitched (exploits) ways to fight.
or
B: Shamefully most guilds teach new people the glitched (exploits) ways to fight.

I’m hoping you meant B.

Sorry not my main language:

Shamefully most guilds don’t teach new people the none glitched (exploits) and none stack ways to fight.

Its your B said with two negatives that cancel each other. That was to put emphasis in the fact that doing it normal way at least encourage some playing skills -.-

My disappointment was not loss of stats, but shifting more stats to gear. Why not provide a stat interface option with a limit of 300 in any one stat and a number of stat points consistent with the 30% buff to gear stats (i.e., less than the 1400 possible under old traits)?

Lucius.2140:

Sorry not my main language:

No worries!

Shamefully most guilds don’t teach new people the none glitched (exploits) and none stack ways to fight.

Its your B said with two negatives that cancel each other. That was to put emphasis in the fact that doing it normal way at least encourage some playing skills -.-

I agree completely. I went into Arah the other day with Pugs, they all expected me to curtain-exploit Lupi. I laughed, then fought Lupi the right way.

Thaddeus.4891:

You had no problem because you had plenty of defensive stats from you gear. Good players don’t want defensive stats, ordinary player can survive without defensive stats but prefer having some as a cushion, bad players NEED defensive stats to survive PvE, which is your case.

Actually I had full Zerker trinkets, 2 pieces of zerker gear, and 4 pieces of celestial gear all with runes of strength. Had 300 in Fire (power) and then would play with the others depending on what I needed, (more VIT and Healing Power? no problem. Don’t need it? Can do 200-300 precision then) I selected my stats and boosts depending on what I needed, now all that customization is gone and I am left with a character that I have to pay a bunch of money if I want to change my stats.

IndigoSundown.5419:

My disappointment was not loss of stats, but shifting more stats to gear. Why not provide a stat interface option with a limit of 300 in any one stat and a number of stat points consistent with the 30% buff to gear stats (i.e., less than the 1400 possible under old traits)?

Thank you, finally another person who understands.

Uhm…I run a mix of cele (chest and legs) and zerk (everything else) on my ele, and don’t have any particular issue since the change. Of course, I didn’t choose my trait trees based on the stats they offered me, but rather the traits I wanted and that hasn’t changed either. Yes, I’ve noted that have a couple thousand less health, but like I said, it really hasn’t made a noticeable difference in my play.

Granted, some type of customization option for the stats may have been nice, but I think Anet was just trying to keep things simple for their users (and themselves). That type of customization can be hell when trying to balance the game.

Mag Wars.1689:

Thaddeus.4891:

You had no problem because you had plenty of defensive stats from you gear. Good players don’t want defensive stats, ordinary player can survive without defensive stats but prefer having some as a cushion, bad players NEED defensive stats to survive PvE, which is your case.

Actually I had full Zerker trinkets, 2 pieces of zerker gear, and 4 pieces of celestial gear all with runes of strength. Had 300 in Fire (power) and then would play with the others depending on what I needed, (more VIT and Healing Power? no problem. Don’t need it? Can do 200-300 precision then) I selected my stats and boosts depending on what I needed, now all that customization is gone and I am left with a character that I have to pay a bunch of money if I want to change my stats.

Ascended trinkets are incredibly cheap. Don’t switch out your armor. Switch those out.

Also, in this post you claim that if you didn’t need it, you went the extra precision line. So there were times when you didn’t need defensive stats from trait lines, and yet in those same instances with the update, where ele has gotten more powerful, you can’t survive? Interesting.

Ele doesn’t need any defensive stats for PvE with enough practice. Access to blinds, vulnerability, vigor upkeep, strong AoE healing. I suggest practicing some more. My sympathies if you play WvW. That I understand more. Though again, ascended trinkets really are quite cheap. Related to that, you were hampering yourself previously. Trait lines should be picked on traits, not stats (which is why the change was implemented, at least in part, I believe). If you cared enough to be swapping, you should have been swapping out trinkets to get the stats you wanted, and then used the traits most beneficial regardless of the associated stat bonuses. So I guess in a way anet has forced you to play smarter. Kudos to them.

Mag I could not agree with you more. I saw the title of your thread and wondered if I somehow started a thread without me knowing about it.

My ranger build – fine. Had no issues at all, actually improved a little after the change.

My p/p condi thief build oth… aNet murdered that build right in its face. I used to attack anyone with full confidence that it would likely end in a win for me. Life was great.

Now my condi damage is not only seriously reduced, but it’s downright laughable compared to burst thieves, and the burst that rangers and mes have available to them now makes my condi pressure useless. Necros are truly a threat and warriors have no trouble holding me off. (That’s PvP of course).

So if I wanna play thief now I have to go burst like everyone else, and I freakin hate burst. It’s just not fun to me, and I’m much better at fighting with condi pressure. So naturally I have not even bothered to PvE with my MAIN alt because switching from condi armor/runes/sigils to full zerk would be so freakin expensive it’s not even worth it to play a style that I don’t even enjoy.

So I’m forced to play Ranger in both PvP and PvE because I can’t play how I want to play. That is, not unless I cough up some serious gold.

I feel your pain brother.

And all you “hey this doesn’t affect me so i must be good and you must suck” need to read the freakin title: OP stated HIS build was killed, not yours. He is fully aware that there are people whose builds were not affected. That has ZERO bearing on the validity of his post. And you all know full well if a particular build that you really enjoyed got destroyed by a near-sighted and bone-headed decision by aNet, you’d be the FIRST ones posting about how terrible it is.

IndigoSundown.5419:

My disappointment was not loss of stats, but shifting more stats to gear. Why not provide a stat interface option with a limit of 300 in any one stat and a number of stat points consistent with the 30% buff to gear stats (i.e., less than the 1400 possible under old traits)?

Because the current fad in design is simplicity over functionality

phys.7689:

IndigoSundown.5419:

My disappointment was not loss of stats, but shifting more stats to gear. Why not provide a stat interface option with a limit of 300 in any one stat and a number of stat points consistent with the 30% buff to gear stats (i.e., less than the 1400 possible under old traits)?

Because the current fad in design is simplicity over functionality

Trend, more likely. More’s the pity.

Mag Wars.1689:

An obvious and easy fix for this would be to reinstate the customizable 900 stat points and simply make it separate from the traits. That way we can select traits and stats on the fly for true adaptibility and enjoyment,

It’s always an obvious and easy fix, no matter how complex it’s implications or hard to implement, to anyone that doesn’t understand what is necessary to do it. Frankly, if you died that much, you need to consider what has changed and how you can adapt to that change. It’s not your stats … it’s your build overall and likely how the traits have changed on you. I’m actually very curious to understand what this build was that was so devastated by the changes. Would you mind to post or describne what it was prior to the patch?

Mag Wars.1689:

An obvious and easy fix for this would be to reinstate the customizable 900 stat points and simply make it separate from the traits. That way we can select traits and stats on the fly for true adaptibility and enjoyment,

We already have that mechanic – swapping trinkets in and out. You can redistribute a huge number of points on the fly using only the amulet, ring, and accessory slots.

What functionality are you looking for that swapping a couple trinkets around doesn’t already address?

Maybe Anet wants people to be good because they are actually good, not cus their build was OP

balancing means OP builds (the most common) get nerfed . . .it’s better this way

What the hell are people expecting to see from an balancing/major trait overhaul update? Did you expect them to change traits, but magically they would still be the same? People complain, they want stuff changed/fixed/buffed/balanced, but they complain when you change their traits.
It’s like complaining this cake is not sweet enough, then you get new one and then you complain “this is a sweet cake!”. Sorry i’m too sleepy to find better analogy atm, but you see the point.
If you can’t survive with new update, then i don’t know what to tell you, you’re either bad player or you didn’t even try to adapt.
I don’t now how you could possibly like having stats tied to traits. That was horrible. You were forced to go into some trait line for either stats or traits, whatever you decided is worth more. Now you have stats and you can freely decide what traits will be best for your build.
And final thing. It’s a mmo game, did you really expect that game would never change when it comes to skills/traits/balance etc? I cna understand that it’s frustrating that you might need to get new gear now, but you can’t honestly expect them to not ever touch skills and traits anymore, just because some people want to stuck with same thing for years.

Ensign.2189:

Mag Wars.1689:

An obvious and easy fix for this would be to reinstate the customizable 900 stat points and simply make it separate from the traits. That way we can select traits and stats on the fly for true adaptibility and enjoyment,

We already have that mechanic – swapping trinkets in and out. You can redistribute a huge number of points on the fly using only the amulet, ring, and accessory slots.

What functionality are you looking for that swapping a couple trinkets around doesn’t already address?

The one that doesn’t require me to buy, collect, and carry a variety of trinkets. The trinket argument is flawed for 2 reasons.

1. It would not had been difficult to have kept the reserve stat points for free issue.
2. Prefixes are not even close to equal in availability or cost. This isn’t obvious to a Zerk primary, but a lot of support builds were hybrids, and did often leverage the synergy of supportive stats that were coupled with supportive traits.

For instance, my Shout guard had Power primary (mostly zerks w/ a dash of soldiers gear) and got 300 each of Toughness, Vit, Healing power and condi damage from traits. The condie damage was not not important to the build, but the extra burn damage did help off set some of the missing power. Considering 300 is pre-nerf full might stack, combined with the guard’s natural ability to maintain a hand full of might, thats a non-trival amount of burn damage. It was tanky as hell, and could still hit like small truck (as a opposed to a not-so-small truck that was the Medi guard).

I ran that build for its high utility and survivability in open world PvE, and was more then capable in most dungeons that weren’t fixated on Zerk speed runs. It was a variant of a top rated PvP/WvW build, and was insanely well balanced for both defense and offense power (a huge step away from the Bunker and Burst Medi that was guard meta).

After the trait update I lost the majority of the defensive stats, and haven’t been able to restore it due to the optimal prefixes not being available through the standard Laural vendors. And this was already ignoring the condie damage (which is potentially powerful with the Radiance burning uptime). After a couple attempts of using crafted trinkets, I came to the conclusion that a top to bottom gear redistribution was necessary to get the off-stats in the right amounts, and redirecting the defunct condi attribute points to compensate for the new down level formula.

Well, I’m going to give the alternate perspective.

I always enjoyed playing medi guard in PVP, but I didn’t play it in PVE because it forced me to waste points in vitality and toughness.

Now that I can pick my trait lines without altering my stats, I feel a lot more free to try different builds. I now mostly run a PVE meditation build with full zerker (and sometimes sinister) gear and it’s great.

Running a full glass build requires you to play aggressively and know all your active defenses. If you’re getting downed too quickly, there are several possibilities:

1. You are getting in over your head.
2. You are not utilizing all your active defenses.
3. The fight is taking too long.

No matter how good you are, you can only hit 5 mobs with a skill and in lot’s of dungeons, you can get overrun or squished if you run off on your own.

Most people seem to know how to dodge, but not everyone remembers to use blocks, blinds, even retaliation helps kill the thing trying to kill you when you can’t avoid the damage. Make sure you know what attacks are coming and have a plan to deal with them.

Finally, even if you know all the tricks, if you’re not killing things quickly enough, you will run out of dodges and heals and find everything on cooldown. Then you get hit.

Getting hit is bad. You will never be able to out heal a mobs ability to harm you and if you can’t kill something quickly, you might die from attrition.

It’s kill or be killed out there people; take off a layer of armor and sharpen your weapon, it makes it so much easier.

starlinvf.1358:

1. It would not had been difficult to have kept the reserve stat points for free issue.

Of course it would have been difficult! It would have required putting an entirely new system into the game to distribute stat points on top of what you get from gear – a redundant system, since you already have the ability to distribute stat points using gear.

That is not a trivial cost – players are already selecting their weapon sets, their utility skills, their traits, and their stats via gear – and that’s not even considering runes and sigils and food and oil. It probably doesn’t seem like it as a veteran, but it’s actually a pretty complicated character build system with a lot of moving parts. Why does it need another layer of stat assignment, on top of gear? What variety and depth is that adding to the game that stats from gear are not? What are you buying with that complexity?

starlinvf.1358:

2. Prefixes are not even close to equal in availability or cost.

This is a perk, as it puts more emphasis on the (weak) reward system that gives out different combinations of stats. Those sets matter more than they used to? Awesome!

starlinvf.1358:

For instance, my Shout guard had Power primary (mostly zerks w/ a dash of soldiers gear) and got 300 each of Toughness, Vit, Healing power and condi damage from traits.

There’s a very simple solution to that mix – Berserker gear with Celestial trinkets. Such a mix, compared to a full Berserker set-up before the update, has higher power, precision (even adjusting for the new zero point), ferocity, toughness, and vitality, and has only 14 fewer points in healing power and condition damage. It is, by virtually any metric, a strictly better build – and easy to swap into, it’s purely trinket swaps.

Zev.3407:

Maybe Anet wants people to be good because they are actually good, not cus their build was OP
balancing means OP builds (the most common) get nerfed . . .it’s better this way

My build was not the most common, my build was built through years of trial and error, was quite unique, was very flexible, and served all of my interests well for 2 years.

As I said before, there were two noobs in my group who were learning the dungeon for the first time, hence why I died so many times between all three paths (and it took almost 2 hours) because they were learning. However, this is not the first time I have taught two under-leveled noobs AC. My toon just doesn’t perform like it used to and yes Obtena

Obtena.7952:

Frankly, if you died that much, you need to consider what has changed and how you can adapt to that change. It’s not your stats … it’s your build overall and likely how the traits have changed on you.

I agree with this statement, my build as a whole has definitely been changed. It is a combination of the stat points and trait changes. But, the new traits I can easily figure out and adapt to… I already have. The reason I am QQing is because our ability to adjust some of our character’s STAT points EASILY and for FREE has been taken from us. It is so expensive to experiment with new PVE builds and switching stats around because THERE IS NO GOOD WAY AT ALL TO GET UPGRADES OUT OF ASCENDED GEAR, and we simply do not have the bag space to walk around with different armor sets and trinkets for everything. (please Anet if you only read one sentence in this entire thread, let it be that one.)

I know everyone here thinks they know everything. But this really isn’t hard to understand guys.

serialkicker.5274:

I don’t now how you could possibly like having stats tied to traits. That was horrible. You were forced to go into some trait line for either stats or traits, whatever you decided is worth more. Now you have stats and you can freely decide what traits will be best for your build.

You obviously didn’t read or comprehend the line of posts at all.. lol.

CuteLilKittenHugz.2064:

I feel your pain brother.

And all you “hey this doesn’t affect me so i must be good and you must suck” need to read the freakin title: OP stated HIS build was killed, not yours. He is fully aware that there are people whose builds were not affected. That has ZERO bearing on the validity of his post. And you all know full well if a particular build that you really enjoyed got destroyed by a near-sighted and bone-headed decision by aNet, you’d be the FIRST ones posting about how terrible it is.

I love you.

starlinvf.1358:

The one that doesn’t require me to buy, collect, and carry a variety of trinkets. The trinket argument is flawed for 2 reasons.

1. It would not had been difficult to have kept the reserve stat points for free issue.
2. Prefixes are not even close to equal in availability or cost. This isn’t obvious to a Zerk primary, but a lot of support builds were hybrids, and did often leverage the synergy of supportive stats that were coupled with supportive traits.

I feel your pain man on your guardian, mine was also a pretty evenly spread trait distribution that no longer exists. But I definitely agree with this statement.

Ensign.2189:

starlinvf.1358:

1. It would not had been difficult to have kept the reserve stat points for free issue.

Of course it would have been difficult! It would have required putting an entirely new system into the game to distribute stat points on top of what you get from gear – a redundant system, since you already have the ability to distribute stat points using gear.

That is not a trivial cost – players are already selecting their weapon sets, their utility skills, their traits, and their stats via gear – and that’s not even considering runes and sigils and food and oil. It probably doesn’t seem like it as a veteran, but it’s actually a pretty complicated character build system with a lot of moving parts. Why does it need another layer of stat assignment, on top of gear? What variety and depth is that adding to the game that stats from gear are not? What are you buying with that complexity?

It really wouldn’t have been difficult. It already existed and worked just fine. And I’m glad you like to pay a lot of money and spend hours to switch stat points but I much prefer my freedom and the ability to change often without consequence.

Sorry to break to you but Trait Lines were supposed to be picked for the Traits not the stats in them, if you want different stats get different gear, legendary weapons alone should give you the stat freedom you want.

I just ran AC last night after not doing it for at least 6 months. I was wearing full Zerker on a full dps guardian. I’m just sitting here wondering how you died 20 times when dodge is available? Do you not use dodge? Also you could try balancing your stats using gear.

Pro tip: The achievements from the first 4 parts of LS season 2 give nomads accessories. (and if theyre too hard you can always get someone in lfg to help you, there are still nice people out there who would). Throw one or two of those in and you will more than make up for any stat loss.

If that is too much time, one of the temples in orr (I think its balth) sells exotic soldiers gear for 40k karma, itll be 10% less stats than ascended but if you arent doing fractals it wont be a big deal, and you can always save up laurels to get an ascended version in the future.

The more you know!

So a couple things about this topic. First of all you can still get almost the same diversity using a bunch of different armor pieces mixing and matching. I am not even going to go into whether this is the “right” thing to do. (Ideally everyone learns the enemy mechanics and times their dodges properly so they can always simply wear Berzerker). It is still possible, it just costs more in-game gold.

The next thing to remember is that the game is almost 3 years old now. MMO’s like this HAVE to change every once in a while to keep long-term players interested and spending money on the game. You must remember that ultimately Anet is a business.

If you are really looking for a RPG-style game that never changes, you really should not be playing an MMO. It is in the nature of an MMO (and in its best interest) to routinely change skills/build to keep the play-style evolving and new. If you were to look at GW1 (my favorite mmo ever) they changed skills/builds/professions almost every 8-10 months. GW2 has now changed them about every ~10 months. This is a healthy cycle for an MMO.

Getting to this particular change, I really like it. Now the traits are exactly what they are at face-value. They now simply enhance the skills you have equipped and the armor/stat choice that you have made. The opportunity costs are now much more understandable and much easier to navigate.

If they would add some legendary armor that can change stats on the fly, i would love it, but again i would expect that it would be really, really, really expensive.

Upgrade Extractors should have an immediate and permanent 50-66% price cut. They should have had it a long time ago. It is not just Ascended and Legendary gear either. If you accidently put anything in Karma equipment it is locked forever too.

The day this patch came out there should have been a 50% off sale on Upgrade Extractors, good till at least the end of July. (and I mean 50% off the already permanent 50% reduction. ie: 75% off what they are now.)

The Powers that Be should consider that half a loaf is better than no bread, and happy players spend more in general. Unhappy players don’t, and may look elsewhere.

While we live in hope that some tiny drop of sanity and a tiny trickle of concern for player qol will permeate what experience shows to be one of the most ossified departments ever, my solution to the kittened condition of several fully geared alts has been to just play the other alts, that I quit playing when the NPE fiasco happened.

At least the ones that were not kittened by the auto kitten build system. Fortunately I had enough tomes to level 2 alts out to 80 where the auto-kitten don’t matter.

So now I can xo gear them and explore the new system and two professions I have no expertise whatsoever in. Maybe I’ll make some ascended if I like what I find. Maybe I’ll take my pending 100 bucks and find something I like better.

ps: the word kitten in all instances was typed by me. While I have very little sympathy for certain of The Powers, I do feel sorry for the poor overworked profanity filter.

JakHammer.7094:

Upgrade Extractors should have an immediate and permanent 50-66% price cut. They should have had it a long time ago. It is not just Ascended and Legendary gear either. If you accidently put anything in Karma equipment it is locked forever too.

Honestly, i will put it in the game for silver or gold, like in several other games; and stick with stetics in the gem shop.

That would make the life of a lot of gamers better and help control the inflation (witch will help gamers too)
I dont think the revenue they get from the gem store will go down significativly (but i dont have data -.-). Perhaps the inflation control will affect gem store revenues, but the conversion rate its alredy so high that if its not for deflaction i dont think it will.

I hate to point out the obvious, but this is an MMORPG, a type of game which usually sees regular updates and changes throughout its lifespan. This will probably not be the last time a build you enjoy will be completely changed. If that isn’t something you can accept and adapt to, MMOs may not be for you.

I honestly think this last update is a marketing ploy. Get people to spend a whole lot of cash trying to optimize some thing that is going to change repeatedly till something makes sense. It is us who pay for gear changes, ruins and sigils. Sure mmo’s change, is usually for the better not worse!! * the specialization huggers* can bite me

eureeka.5368:

I honestly think this last update is a marketing ploy. Get people to spend a whole lot of cash trying to optimize some thing that is going to change repeatedly till something makes sense. It is us who pay for gear changes, ruins and sigils. Sure mmo’s change, is usually for the better not worse!! * the specialization huggers* can bite me

I don’t like it, so kitten those “specialization huggers”. I don’t know there seem to be a lot of us. Maybe even a majority, for a change.

I think you need to find a different tin foil hat, the one you’re wearing seems to have bugged out.

Before all the changes came around, they announced that ‘certain’ builds were going to have issues with the new system. Especially those that went off the beaten track and went with specific trait stat builds, like the one OP was talking about.

It’s completely understandable that one is upset when a given build that used to work fine, now is completely useless because of the implemented changes.

I went off the beaten path with one of my characters (warrior) , but thankfully i had prepared as soon as i heard about it my ascended set that is now berserkers (zojja’s).

I do notice a difference with going to a more ‘standard’ build :
- more power
- same survivability (well, a bit more)
- less versatility
But all in all, not a bad change.

However, should i not have prepared that way, i’m sure my build would have been powerless to the onslaught of traitchanges and statchanges.

The biggest problem is the conversion they offer :
- asc gear changes cost you the upgrades, and in all honesty, the upgrade extractors are definately not worth the price of the runes.
- changes in stats cannot be completely compensated by changing your ascended gear, most of the time (not always though) trinkets come in to place as well. If they’re ascended, well, you’re kitten out of luck as they say, those can’t be changed on the fly.

What it comes down to is that those that didn’t follow the so-called standard builds, are now paying for it.
I find it kind of baffling that Anet dev’s haven’t been able or seen fit to implement a system (like in a lot of other mmo’s) that allows players to distibute their stat points themselves. Give them some freedom of how much HP/def/power/…etc they want on their toon.

All the changes really did was push people into some kind of tunnelling system. You can go with whatever gear you want, but you will end up in one or another tunnel. If you don’t, your character is useless. Choose gear, choose traits, go with power or condi, it all doesn’t matter, since in the end, you will follow the roadmap layed out.
If you don’t, you fall out of the boat.

Mag Wars.1689:

So separate them??? Don’t just kill off the customization of those selectable stat points!!!

In order, they did, and they didnt. A portion of those stats were added to your base stats. The rest were compensated by gear stats being shifted upwards. In all honesty, if your build was so severely impacted by the loss of ~200 stat points somewhere, I really dont think your build was good in the first place. Frankly, even with the risk of someone complaining about my post, your build sounds like utter trash if you die that much. Even my engineer running full zerker or sinister (depends on the dungeon and fractal) does not die that much in AC.