Guild Wars 2

I’ve suggested this exact thing months ago. When ascended weapons were announced.

I’ve since been saying that the only way to salvage the whole Ascended debacle is to remove Ascended gear’s stat increase over exotic and give them the “stat change out of combat” feature.

EVERYONE will want to do them because of the convenience factor. But NOBODY would feel forced to do them¹ since they would not offer any statistical advantage.

That’s how you do horizontal progression instead of vertical…

¹ Except the Fractals crowd, but that’s the entire point of Fractals…

I’d love to have the ability to swap armor stats on my acended gear, as it stands now I have 5 armor sets and 3 trinket sets for my main and 2x 20 slot backpacks to hold them. It feels like a huge waste of space and one set even have to stay in my bank.

For the method of unlocking new stat combinations… I love it! It adds more horizontal progression and increese the value of exp/skillpoints as a currentcy.

However, just buying a new combinations for skillpoints sounds a little bit dull, maybe making skillpoints a part of a recipie for a consumable item that adds another a specific stat to your stat list.

I’m calling it now, legendary armor will have the stat changing functionality and ascended armor is the precursor to legendary armor

ProxyDamage.9826:

I’ve suggested this exact thing months ago. When ascended weapons were announced.

I’ve since been saying that the only way to salvage the whole Ascended debacle is to remove Ascended gear’s stat increase over exotic and give them the “stat change out of combat” feature.

EVERYONE will want to do them because of the convenience factor. But NOBODY would feel forced to do them¹ since they would not offer any statistical advantage.

That’s how you do horizontal progression instead of vertical…

¹ Except the Fractals crowd, but that’s the entire point of Fractals…

It’s great to see like minded individuals! And if I had seen your suggestion, I would have supported it fully. Unfortunately, I think it’s a bit late for ANet to change the stats to Exotic stat levels, because many individuals grinded for the gear with the goal of gaining that specific stat boost would be upset. It’s be like pulling a rug out from underneath their feet.

Are.1326:

However, just buying a new combinations for skillpoints sounds a little bit dull, maybe making skillpoints a part of a recipie for a consumable item that adds another a specific stat to your stat list.

This is also a good point. My only concern is if making it a craftable recipe would make it grindier than it should be, but “grind” is a relative term, and the amount of “grindiness” is different for every player. It’s all about perspectives, as they say.

No. And here are the reasons why:
- If you would add the out of combat stat change, Legendary gear would lose their uniqueness.
- Guild Wars 1 had ascended armors as well – And they weren’t different from the max armors apart from its appearance and cost.
- In the lore of Guild Wars, whoever successfully ascended, was able to travel trough the mists. Same goes for GW2;

Ascended gear was mainly created for fractals – in order to get more AR – so you could travel to higher levels of the fractals of the mist.

This gear was not created to make players wearing it significantly OP against other exotic geared players.
If that would be so, the ingame combat balance would change…

What you’re asking for is making ingame player combat experience less worth than ingame grinding.

Gentle.4308:

I’m calling it now, legendary armor will have the stat changing functionality and ascended armor is the precursor to legendary armor

+1

Spira.4578:

No. And here are the reasons why:
- If you would add the out of combat stat change, Legendary gear would lose their uniqueness.
- Guild Wars 1 had ascended armors as well – And they weren’t different from the max armors apart from its appearance and cost.
- In the lore of Guild Wars, whoever successfully ascended, was able to travel trough the mists. Same goes for GW2;

Ascended gear was mainly created for fractals – in order to get more AR – so you could travel to higher levels of the fractals of the mist.

This gear was not created to make players wearing it significantly OP against other exotic geared players.
If that would be so, the ingame combat balance would change…

What you’re asking for is making ingame player combat experience less worth than ingame grinding.

A good argument, but allow me to counter it.

-Legendary items are unique for their appearances, not for stats. The ability to change their stats was implemented because of the fact they used to only come with one stat prefix (Soldiers, for those who don’t know.) This was due to complaints about legendaries forcing players into a specific stat prefix.

-Guild Wars 2 has ascended armor, and their stats and appearances are different than other gear, and are the max level tier for items in this game. And this is ANet’s doing. They are the ones who made this change to what ascended gear is in the guild wars universe, and it’s to late to go back to how it was in previous titles. This isn’t Guild Wars: Prophecies.

-Ascended gear has never been required to step foot into fractals. They are only needed to progress in difficulty, which I’m fairly certain isn’t a “lore related” aspect, and rather it’s a game mechanic. So lore holds no value to the Ascended items of GW2.

The gear isn’t significantly more “op” than Exotics stat wise as it is, so why would allowing the ability to change stats out of combat suddenly make them “op”?

You’re a week late on the vertical progression CDI. This exact thing was discussed hundreds of times in the dev thread.

Gnat.9405:

You’re a week late on the vertical progression CDI. This exact thing was discussed hundreds of times in the dev thread.

This is also about horizontal progression, but either way it’s good to hear others have discussed this idea as well. I haven’t been around, and the idea came to me while I was at work, so I figured I’d make a thread while the idea was still fresh in my mind.

Amiron.1067:

A good argument, but allow me to counter it.

-Legendary items are unique for their appearances, not for stats. The ability to change their stats was implemented because of the fact they used to only come with one stat prefix (Soldiers, for those who don’t know.) This was due to complaints about legendaries forcing players into a specific stat prefix.

-Guild Wars 2 has ascended armor, and their stats and appearances are different than other gear, and are the max level tier for items in this game. And this is ANet’s doing. They are the ones who made this change to what ascended gear is in the guild wars universe, and it’s to late to go back to how it was in previous titles. This isn’t Guild Wars: Prophecies.

-Ascended gear has never been required to step foot into fractals. They are only needed to progress in difficulty, which I’m fairly certain isn’t a “lore related” aspect, and rather it’s a game mechanic. So lore holds no value to the Ascended items of GW2.

The gear isn’t significantly more “op” than Exotics stat wise as it is, so why would allowing the ability to change stats out of combat suddenly make them “op”?

- Legendary weapons are indeed different when it comes to the look, however based on all the things you have to do to obtain them, they deserve something more – and based on what this post is about you should understand that. If ascended gear should have ascended stats, legendary gear should have legendary stats…

- Guild Wars 2 changed the stats of the ascended gear – but not to make them OP. It was supposed to give players some kind of a feeling that they have some kind of a superior items (same as with the trinkets). What I was trying to say with my first comment about the stats is that Guild Wars original idea didn’t include any stat bonuses. So what we got in Gw2 is already more than it is supposed to be.

- Ascended gear was not required to enter in the fractals, but it is required to survive high level fractals – which is, in a way, a way to travel trough the mists.

- It can change the current flow. Also – if you don’t think it would matter in combat, then why would you even want it to be implemented?

Just skill points sounds dull to me. I would prefer this:

- Ascended items now have no innate stats.

- They now have an Inscription slot, that sits where the stats usually go.

- This slot only has one Inscription to begin with, which is the default of the original item. For example, Zojja’s Visor would only have Zojja’s Berserker Insignia.

- Applying a new Inscription to this slot would unlock it for unlimited swapping. For example, applying Chorben’s Soldier Insignia to Zojja’s Visor would result in the item having access to Berserker and Soldier stat combinations of Ascended level, similiar to how Legendaries swap stats but with the restriction of having to acquire the combinations yourself.

- If people still think this is too much, I would suggest a lesser, “Versatile” version of an Insignia that exists just for swapping and applying to another default. It could use Skill Points instead of Damask.

Spira.4578:

Amiron.1067:

A good argument, but allow me to counter it.

-Legendary items are unique for their appearances, not for stats. The ability to change their stats was implemented because of the fact they used to only come with one stat prefix (Soldiers, for those who don’t know.) This was due to complaints about legendaries forcing players into a specific stat prefix.

-Guild Wars 2 has ascended armor, and their stats and appearances are different than other gear, and are the max level tier for items in this game. And this is ANet’s doing. They are the ones who made this change to what ascended gear is in the guild wars universe, and it’s to late to go back to how it was in previous titles. This isn’t Guild Wars: Prophecies.

-Ascended gear has never been required to step foot into fractals. They are only needed to progress in difficulty, which I’m fairly certain isn’t a “lore related” aspect, and rather it’s a game mechanic. So lore holds no value to the Ascended items of GW2.

The gear isn’t significantly more “op” than Exotics stat wise as it is, so why would allowing the ability to change stats out of combat suddenly make them “op”?

- Legendary weapons are indeed different when it comes to the look, however based on all the things you have to do to obtain them, they deserve something more – and based on what this post is about you should understand that. If ascended gear should have ascended stats, legendary gear should have legendary stats…

- Guild Wars 2 changed the stats of the ascended gear – but not to make them OP. It was supposed to give players some kind of a feeling that they have some kind of a superior items (same as with the trinkets). What I was trying to say with my first comment about the stats is that Guild Wars original idea didn’t include any stat bonuses. So what we got in Gw2 is already more than it is supposed to be.

- Ascended gear was not required to enter in the fractals, but it is required to survive high level fractals – which is, in a way, a way to travel trough the mists.

- It can change the current flow. Also – if you don’t think it would matter in combat, then why would you even want it to be implemented?

ANet specifically stated that legendaries were supposed to do 2 things; have unique effects/skins and be on par with the highest tier of weapons. Stat swapping, again, was not put in because it’s a legendary, but instead because players were being forced to use the base Soldier stats (Power, Vitality, Toughness) on their legendary items.

I never stated that ascended was intended to be OP. The fact remains that ascended items hold a small ~5% stat gain overall when compared to Exotics, but this is not the subject of this thread. Yes, you need the ascended gear to survive higher levels of Fractals, but again, this is a game mechanic, not a lore mechanic, nor is it relevant to the concept of stat swapping.

Change the flow? Could you clarify what you mean by this? And this isn’t about combat. It doesn’t effect combat. It was never the intent to change combat. What it’s meant to do is allow players a universal set of gear that you can change out of combat. You’re still going to have to re-trait your character to whatever new stats you put on (normally, at least.) So it’s not like you’ll see someone supposedly “abuse” this in a dungeon.

25 Skillpoints is a joke. I got 1500+ left on my main of them without even trying , after building 4 legendaries and all kind of other skillpoint recipes. This is also without taking part in champion zergs mind you.
It should cost at least 300 skillpoints per prefix if anything.

Malediktus.9250:

25 Skillpoints is a joke. I got 1500+ left on my main of them without even trying , after building 4 legendaries and all kind of other skillpoint recipes. This is also without taking part in champion zergs mind you.

A game should never be balanced around a fraction of a percent of its players.

Top gear (BiS gear) shouldnt be balanced for casual players.

When I started reading the OP, I was ready to dismiss it as yet another request for stat morphing on Ascended gear. I think that this would be a terrible move that simultaneously devalues existing Legendary weapons and also nixes any chance of getting Legendary Armors. However, this showed more thought than most of those requests:

There are currently 18~ stat prefixes in the game. Once you’ve unlocked a single piece of ascended gear, you now unlock a new category under skill points called “Ascension”. This screen is where you to to unlock stat prefixes via Skill Points. Think about it: how many skill points do you have just lying around, gathering dust? This would be a perfect way to give players a reason not only to spend Skill Points, but to also want ascended gear. How many skill points does a stat prefix cost, you ask? I can’t say! But if it’s anything like ANet’s new skills that they’re releasing, I’d be just fine with 25 Skill Points per prefix.

A simple Skill Point tax seems far too light. Skill Points are essentially nothing for any character that has been around a long time. However, make it a bit more substantial; say a skill point item purchase and the inscription who’s stat profile you want to add to the item. This keeps you from having to grind out tedious Vision Crystal components that do not fit your playstyle (For me, that would be chasing down World Bosses. Other people never seem to have enough from dungeons.) while still making a non-negligable cost associated with ‘improving’ your gear. It gives people a bit of flexibility to change their builds without having to totally start over on crafting a full new set of gear, while also saving them inventory space!

Amiron.1067:

Ascend:
1. to move, climb, or go upward; mount; rise: The airplane ascended into the clouds.
2. to slant upward.
3. to rise to a higher point, rank, or degree; proceed from an inferior to a superior degree or level: to ascend to the presidency.

Hi! I’m wanting to discuss the position of ascended gear in GW2 in it’s current state. Currently, ascended gear is the “vertical” progression of the game, and gives players a very small advantage (~5%) over players decked out in Exotic gear. The main purpose for ascended gear is for agony resistance in the Fractals of the Mists.

I’m here to propose a change for ascended gear that will open up more potential uses for it and explain why this is a useful change.

As it stands now, it takes a very long grind to obtain this gear. Thousands of materials, hundreds of gold, and hours of grinding is in store for those attempting to acquire ascended items. Let’s look at the materials for just one set of ascended armor:

-1500 Dragonite Ore
-1500 Empyreal Fragments
-1500 Bloodstone Dust
-90 Obsidian Shards
-120 Skill Points
-Many, many other various miscellaneous materials.

I don’t know about you, but thats a lot of stuff to acquire. For a 5% stat boost. And this is all for a small minority of players who are really getting into higher level fractal missions.

Seems like a whole lot of work for very little benefits, don’t you agree? Here’s where my suggestion comes into place. For those of you who have a legendary weapon, you know just how amazing it is to be able to change the stats on your weapon on the fly whenever you’re out of combat.

Bring this feature to ascended gear, ANet.

Now keep your pants on, fellow Tyrians. I know this sounds drastic. “Why should ascended gear have the same features as a legendary item, something that is far harder to obtain?” Good question! To that, here is my answer:

There are currently 18~ stat prefixes in the game. Once you’ve unlocked a single piece of ascended gear, you now unlock a new category under skill points called “Ascension”. This screen is where you to to unlock stat prefixes via Skill Points. Think about it: how many skill points do you have just lying around, gathering dust? This would be a perfect way to give players a reason not only to spend Skill Points, but to also want ascended gear. How many skill points does a stat prefix cost, you ask? I can’t say! But if it’s anything like ANet’s new skills that they’re releasing, I’d be just fine with 25 Skill Points per prefix.

This system would give players a lot of versatility with their builds in top notch gear, and give players reason to actually grind for it other than Fractals and a measly ~5% stat boost. Guild Wars 2 is a game that raves about versatility and build exploration, and I believe this would make good to ANet’s claim.

Like the idea? Hate it? Think it needs something else? Sly remarks? Comment below! Let us make discussion, fellow gamers!

Edit: Typos and grammar.

I disagree with you. A lot.

Remember, many of us are simply brighter then others and have stocked up on mats since the moment ascended armor was announced and planned well. We did not spend hundreds or thousands of gold, we simply planned well instead of whining about it. As a result, we already have multiple ascended armor sets on our characters.

I myself do not have a single fully complete set yet, however I do have 2 chestpieces, 2 legs, and various other single pieces of armor on 3 out of 6 of my lvl 80 characters and expect my main to have 2 full sets within a month or less.

And of course I have about a tab of rings in the bank and various other jewelry pieces waiting to be used as I see fit.

But with regards to armor. If you give ascended armor ability to change stats like legendary weapons, you better be prepared to refund all of us that have taken path such as I have. We do have 2 or sometimes even 3 sets of armor for different stats for different builds. For example, set 1 for group WvW, set 2 for roaming and misc outdoors PvE, set 3 for runing dungeons / fractals.

Also, please do not falsely assume that all we use ascended armor for is fractals. There are these things called WvW infusions you know. While by itself a WvW infusion gives you only a +5 (ignore the 1% guard bonus), however, when taking into account 6 pieces of armor, 6 jewelry, and 2 on weapons, that is a +70 point given to a stat on top of the already higher 5% gain. And we do care about that.

So how would you impliment your idea without destroying the importance of already existing multiple ascended armor / jewelry sets on each toon for those of us that already have them ?

Amiron.1067:

Ascend:
1. to move, climb, or go upward; mount; rise: The airplane ascended into the clouds.
2. to slant upward.
3. to rise to a higher point, rank, or degree; proceed from an inferior to a superior degree or level: to ascend to the presidency.

4. To commune with higher powers of Tyria, as in human Ascension in the Crystal Desert, or becoming Weh no Su--gaining hidden power within oneself, the gift of True Sight, and the ability to enter Realms of the Gods.

Ascension wasn’t just a 5% stat increase in Guild Wars 1; it was an important part of the story and lore of both the Prophecies and Factions campaigns. What I gather from the differences and similarities between Ascension and Weh no Su is that it’s a set of exceedingly difficult trials which gives an individual a degree of mastery over the Mists, and thus the powers listed above.
Regardless, to me “Truly Ascended” gear will always be connected with the lore of Ascension, and getting one’s armor infused thereafter. Therefore, my thoughts regarding the current state and future of ascended gear are as follows:

• The current amount of materials required to craft ascended gear is appropriate. It should be daunting, given the gravity of Ascension in the original lore of GW1, and they were successful in making it daunting. The 5% stat boost is also in line with the stat boosts gained in GW1 Ascension; the biggest gain with Ascension was in story progression and elite area access privilege.
• The story behind obtaining Ascended gear in GW2 is exceedingly weak. In GW1, my character fought his way to the Crystal Desert, completed the three trials of Ascension at the Dunes of Despair, Thirsty River, and Elona Reach, and then fought his own doppelganger to Ascend, meet the dragon Glint, and then finally fight the mursaat, all as foretold by the Flameseeker Prophecies. In GW2, players collect thousands of piles of grindy goo by playing the same dungeons, jumping puzzles, world bosses, and fractals hundreds of times over and over again, and level up their crafting until they can combine all this grind into one gigantic grindy-monument known as an Ascended Item. That is our story.
• What would be most fun for me is if Ascended gear now took on some purpose in the story of GW2, in fighting the Elder Dragons, and the Scarlet story arc. The 5% stat boost is fine, and appropriate, but what would make gear “Truly Ascended” is if it had some greater narrative significance, not just a minor stat increase.
• The problem with requiring Ascended gear for narrative content is that it gates players who haven’t put time into crafting Ascended items. A possible solution for this is to have a narrative for an individual becoming Ascended as a person, as opposed to having Ascended gear. The gear would remain separate, and the story would only require character Ascension, not Ascended gear. Meanwhile, high-level story missions could be created for those who are fully decked out in Ascended gear, like elite areas in GW1.
• Crafting should not be required to obtain Ascended gear. Players shouldn’t have to craft if it’s not something they enjoy. What I think would be ideal is if new narrative content provided the opportunity to trade Ascended gear materials and money/laurels/karma/etc. for an item which you double-click on and apply to an existing piece of gear to “Ascend” it. Using the item’s existing stat-base, the item would simply go up to top-tier stats. The catch would be that Ascending a piece of gear this way would have to take into account the cost of leveling up a crafting profession and of buying fine transmutation stones to transmute crafted Ascended items. Otherwise it’d be unfair to people who have already crafted.

So…

Legendary-> You have all stat combinations available for that item. No restrictions.
Ascended -> You have the ascended’s own stats, and can freely switch to stat combinations you’ve unlocked.
Exotics or less -> You just have the item’s stats.

Is that it?

Hm… make it so

• The unlocks are per item type, not per stat. So if you unlock “Soldier” for swords, you don’t get automatically “Soldier” for other weapons.
• The unlocks are account bound, but require crafting an item that unlocks the stat. The recipe requires one vision crystals to craft among other materials (e.g. insignias, inscriptions, an exotic with those stats, etc), so it also includes 20 skill points and some ascended materials.

With those conditions, I’m in. That’s a horizontal progression system that I could take. First go for the stats I want to equip more often, then go for the rest to try out stuff, and each character only needs to get ascended items once, no need to get multiple sets.

That along a system to progressively unlock skins would make the best out o gearing in GW2.

Tongku.5326:

So how would you impliment your idea without destroying the importance of already existing multiple ascended armor / jewelry sets on each toon for those of us that already have them ?

Existing ascended gear would be pretty easy. These stat prefixes aren’t account bound, mind you, therefore each character has to unlock their own prefixes. Of course, there would be three categories; Trinkets, Armor, and Weapons, and you’d have to unlock stat prefixes for each (i.e. unlocking berzerker on weapons would not unlock berzerker for armor.) So, whatever prefixes you currently have would be the ones permanently unlocked.

Seems fairly simple, no? You earned that gear before the change, therefore you wouldn’t have to grind for any of the prefixes you already own. I can’t see why this would be an issue.

afoot.6932:

Snip!

The question here to ask is this; is this “Ascended” tier the same ascended we’re speaking about from GW1? Or is it merely a name for yet another gear tier?

I personally don’t see any relevance to lore with GW2’s ascended armor, so I don’t treat it as such. When GW2 talks ascended gear, I think it’s speaking about something else entirely unrelated to GW Prophecies.

Unfortunately, if there is no narrative behind getting ascended gear now, then there more than most likely won’t be. GW2’s ascended gear will forever be a stat increase, an opportunity to access more difficult levels of the Fractals of the Mist dungeon, and WvW infusions.

I propose something similar in the curent CDI. As I don’t want to copy&paste, I will just post the link here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/4#post3408529

The only thing that should inherit stat change on click should be legendary armor, and those will be coming for sure.

The problem with ascended gear when it first has been introduced was, that it had extra stats on it. If there was ONLY agony resistance slots on there, I dare saying it wouldn’t bother people all that much. In my opinion, Arenanet has done a great deal of damage to the game by introducing something that was intended to be a “Fractals only” thing to have slightly higher stats. People do not care about the little boost ascended gear provides over exotics. People care about the highest possible ratings to attain out of principle.

I fear we long passed the point where ascended gear cannot be brought back down to “exotic level gear with infusion slots”, which is – again, my opinion – what they should have been in the first place. Resistance gear for a specific dungeon.
I am not fond of thinking about how different resistance mechanics would be build into the game, similar to fractals and agony…

But back to topic;
Yes, ascended armor is not easy to attain and you have to do too much outside of fractals to get said materials, which doesn’t make sense for something that was designed to give you benefits ONLY inside this instance.
No, ascended armor should not become “free full attribute switch.” Leave that for legendary armor to come.
Yes, I would agree to a “you can only switch the stats around which you have unlocked by whatever means.”

In all honesty, the main reason I’ve avoided Ascended gear so far is that I don’t trust the balance team enough to invest that heavily in any one equipment load, especially when my main is an Elementalist. This suggestion would fix that quite nicely.

But it wouldn’t help them sell Transmutation Crystals every time a new patch breaks a popular build, so there is zero chance of it ever happening.

i love this idea its EPIC broo

Signed. Ascended gear is kitten, and needs to get fixed, and this is a great way to do it.

It should even be free, but I’d be content with skill points.

Great idea. On one hand I would love to see it exactly as presented in the OP. On the other hand I’m concerned that the idea will be adopted but instead of just skill points, will also require a ridiculous amount of grind (that could be circumvented by converting gems to gold).

i already suggested this 6 years ago. took them 6 years to make it possible in guild wars 2. unfortunately they made it possible on legendary weapons first.

no one is forced to do it anyway…..the stat increase is so marginal 100% of the gw2’s content is doable without ascended gear except for fractals….and guess what fractals isn’t doable because of 3 more power….its solely for the Agony Resist that its NEEDED for fractal progression. Leave it the way it is.

All gear should have out of combat change-able stats… not just legendary, not just ascended… everything. Kill the stat grind.

After making a few armor pieces and weapons I feel like the fun of this game is being sucked out of me.

Zanthrax.6538:

no one is forced to do it anyway…..the stat increase is so marginal 100% of the gw2’s content is doable without ascended gear except for fractals….and guess what fractals isn’t doable because of 3 more power….its solely for the Agony Resist that its NEEDED for fractal progression. Leave it the way it is.

The problem is, not everybody thinks the way you do. Many people do not care how marginal the increase of stats is. They just view it as “best in slot” and need to obtain it. Their carrot on a stick. It didn’t take long until some random groups wanted everyone to post their pink trinkets + weapons, and if not, people got kicked. It will happen with ascended armor too. This is passive griefing of the worst kind. Or even worse, checking how many Achievement points someone has and using that as an LFG entry requirement, which is perhaps even worse.
People who are not even doing fractals are obtaining said ascended gear BECAUSE of it’s availability. What do WvW players need ascended gear for who don’t even set a foot into PvE? Nothing. Still they get it, because extra stats. Many players throughout the game put +20% gold infusion into their necklace. What does that have to do with fractals, I ask? Nothing. That is cringeworthy.

The biggest problem with ascended gear are the extra stats on it. The impact on the community is huge, the outcry back then ways immense, and the repercussions become bigger and bigger. It could have all been avoided completely with the removal of extra stats on the ascended gear, and have it just being a fractal-only resistance item, ideally using an “upgrade kit” to be slapped on an exotic to make it of ascended quality with the added infusion slot.
Back in beta, the outcry was similar huge about legendary weapons doing roughly 5% more damage than exotics. Arenanet listened and tuned them back down. They didn’t listen with removal of stats on ascended gear, and now we have a cancer in the game that keeps spreading.

Melchior.2135:

In all honesty, the main reason I’ve avoided Ascended gear so far is that I don’t trust the balance team enough to invest that heavily in any one equipment load.

My thoughts exactly.

I like the OP’s idea for sure and if they don’t take that I like the ascended armor as a precursor for Legendary armor.

Malediktus.9250:

Top gear (BiS gear) shouldnt be balanced for casual players.

In this game it should – it was one of the selling points, after all.