Guild Wars 2

Who keep convincing themselves ascended gear is ‘optional’ and not required for high level play, be that pve or wvw. They keep ringing their: It’s only a 5% stat difference… it doesn’t matter.

Even if that were true any smart and sane individual could deduce that a difference of 5% is more than it may seem. 5% is actually alot. I’ve done the math and it turns out its more.

A warrior with berserker gear, assuming no traits spent, food used or any buffs what so ever has the following stats with full berserker gear and scholar runes:

2083 Power
1614 Precision
69% CD

Same warrior with ascended gear, scholar runes and stat infusions:

2238 7,4%
1661 2,9%
79% CD 14,5%

That’s a 7,4% boost in power, a 2,9% boost in precision and 14,5% boost in crit damage.
Ofcourse someone else can prolly do the math on this and conclude this averages around a 5% boost in total dps output, however the claim most people make is that it’s a 5% STAT boost, which as you can see is not true.

Now to the part about it not mattering. Imagine this: You are in full exotic and get hit by a player for 10k dmg and you have 20.5k health. You can take two of those hits and survive with 500 hp and possibly win the fight. Now said player receives his 5% dmg boost through ascended gear and procedes to kill you in two hits.

Ascended gear + stats DO matter.. they make all the difference in the world. Ofcourse if you are bad ascended gear isn’t going to save you but assuming two equally skilled people the ascended player will come out on top, 100% guarantee.

This is not a bash or hate towards ascended gear, it’s a bash/hate towards people insisting ascended gear is optional and not required for high level play. If you are the type of person that cares about being optimal then not being in ascended gear simply makes you sub optimal.

yes it does give your stats a boost, but you don’t NEED it to do any content.
Therefor it is completly optional

ps: U used a warrior as an example……..u can be in Masterworks and still be fine in any of the end game content using that class.

In fact, everything in this game is optional…

Seen plenty of folks fighting in their undies (also an option).

And I resent being called “sub optimal”. I’m optimal in my own unique way

Sounds like your scenario only happens in PvP. I’m not that fond of PvP, as others are not, so it is optional.

But, of course, not being fond of PvP will most likely make me sub-optimal in some eyes. And that’s ok with me. =)

I am still running around in WvW with my Warrior, and I have not seen any change in survivability and/or killing time since the release of Ascended Armor. So clearly the difference isn’t big enough to be noticeble.

For the record I am running around with Ascended Hammer and Ascended Rings, but the rest is exotic still, and since it really doesn’t seem to make me lose, I don’t really see why I would need to change it.

The price far outweighs the stat increase. Its nowhere near worth the ludicrous amount of money to get 500 in a crafting profession, then make the actual gear.

I’d rather horde my money until Arenanet makes decent looking legendary weapons.

Ascended gear is only required for high-level fractals , and the " they make all the difference in the world." part , I’m sorry but I’m going to have to call you out on your bullkitten.

Verificus.4320:

A warrior with berserker gear, assuming no traits spent, food used or any buffs what so ever has the following stats with full berserker gear and scholar runes:

2083 Power
1614 Precision
69% CD

Same warrior with ascended gear, scholar runes and stat infusions:

2238 7,4%
1661 2,9%
79% CD 14,5%

That’s a 7,4% boost in power, a 2,9% boost in precision and 14,5% boost in crit damage.
Ofcourse someone else can prolly do the math on this and conclude this averages around a 5% boost in total dps output, however the claim most people make is that it’s a 5% STAT boost, which as you can see is not true.

Now do the math and see what only the full armor set brings without the jewelry, since the armor is the by far the most expensive and grindy part.

Full armor gives you i think +15 Power, +11 Precision and +1% crit.

Martrim.1078:

yes it does give your stats a boost, but you don’t NEED it to do any content.
Therefor it is completly optional

ps: U used a warrior as an example……..u can be in Masterworks and still be fine in any of the end game content using that class.

Take your masterwork wearing warrior to wvw please.

Yeah, don’t post silly things, thank you.

Since the first sentence of the OP calls out PvE players, I think they have just as much right to comment as those who WvW or PvP.

Beldin.5498:

Now do the math and see what only the full armor set brings without the jewelry, since the armor is the by far the most expensive and grindy part.

Full armor gives you i think +15 Power, +11 Precision and +1% crit.

This. And…

Verificus.4320:

That’s a 7,4% boost in power, a 2,9% boost in precision and 14,5% boost in crit damage.

Crit damage will be removed with the March 4 patch – the uneven scaling of +n% is the exact reason why it’s being changed to Ferocity.

And even with trinkets in and CD out of the equation, you have (7,4+2,9)=5,15% increase. That much for math, sorry.

And if we’re talking about the ascended armor only, which should be the topic here because ascended trinkets come naturally with laurels, I suggest you take a look at the real stat difference table calculated by Dulfy: http://dulfy.net/2013/12/12/gw2-ascended-armor-stats/

As was said above, I have seen no difference in survivability between my exotic set of gear and my ascended gear in WvW. I can see that my weapon’s tick a bit more damage, but I would hardly say it gives me the edge.

In fact, I was one on one with my exotic gear against another person who had that ugly ascended gear skins and an ascended greatsword. I won. It is more than just the gear that gives you any edge.

And so I say as both a Wvw AND a PvE player. Ascended gear is completely optional. And if you feel it isn’t, then craft it. We all have that option. It isn’t as if you are blocked from getting any ascended armor or weapon.

All content other than high level fractals is available for relatively easy completion without ascended gear, thus ascended gear is optional gear that simply makes things slightly easier.

This is not WoW, where the next tier is effectively mandatory because without it you fail the DPS or AR check.

Min\max people will always win.

Be it from build, food, class choice or ascended gear.

There’s like less than 1% that you’ll lose a fight in wvw due to gear difference. More likely you’ll be hard countered\outplayed\outnumbered, etc. Stop making up excuses and blaming the game for your own fails.

Hey OP,

Ignore people who say that. They are either deliberately trolling or blindly attacking anything that threatens either a) their advantage or b) their preference for vertical progression.

It’s always nice to see a post where the OP just bails…

(I really have an issue with people posting and then just show no acknowledgement of actually reading the answers, Grr.)

mtpelion.4562:

All content other than high level fractals is available for relatively easy completion without ascended gear, thus ascended gear is optional gear that simply makes things slightly easier.

This is not WoW, where the next tier is effectively mandatory because without it you fail the DPS or AR check.

Armor I won’t argue because surviving one-shots a portion of the time is legit.

DPS, on the other hand: In a typical boss fight, ascended/legendary equate to shortening the fight by so little it makes them not worth the hassle of crafting them.

It’s only been a couple of hours? You know, people have lives outside of the forums.

Verificus.4320:

Who keep convincing themselves ascended gear is ‘optional’ and not required for high level play, be that pve or wvw. They keep ringing their: It’s only a 5% stat difference… it doesn’t matter.

It’s true but it’s also irrelevant argument. It’s better and it doesn’t matter how much better it is it’s still better which means if one wants to remain at the top in the systems like DPS based rewards, and WVW survival one needs the highest gear. It doesn’t matter if BillyBobJoeBob can possibly do it without that gear, not everyone is BillyBobJoeBob so they have no valid point.

Verificus.4320:

Who keep convincing themselves ascended gear is ‘optional’ and not required for high level play, be that pve or wvw. They keep ringing their: It’s only a 5% stat difference… it doesn’t matter.

Even if that were true any smart and sane individual could deduce that a difference of 5% is more than it may seem. 5% is actually alot. I’ve done the math and it turns out its more.

A warrior with berserker gear, assuming no traits spent, food used or any buffs what so ever has the following stats with full berserker gear and scholar runes:

2083 Power
1614 Precision
69% CD

Same warrior with ascended gear, scholar runes and stat infusions:

2238 7,4%
1661 2,9%
79% CD 14,5%

That’s a 7,4% boost in power, a 2,9% boost in precision and 14,5% boost in crit damage.
Ofcourse someone else can prolly do the math on this and conclude this averages around a 5% boost in total dps output, however the claim most people make is that it’s a 5% STAT boost, which as you can see is not true.

Now to the part about it not mattering. Imagine this: You are in full exotic and get hit by a player for 10k dmg and you have 20.5k health. You can take two of those hits and survive with 500 hp and possibly win the fight. Now said player receives his 5% dmg boost through ascended gear and procedes to kill you in two hits.

Ascended gear + stats DO matter.. they make all the difference in the world. Ofcourse if you are bad ascended gear isn’t going to save you but assuming two equally skilled people the ascended player will come out on top, 100% guarantee.

This is not a bash or hate towards ascended gear, it’s a bash/hate towards people insisting ascended gear is optional and not required for high level play. If you are the type of person that cares about being optimal then not being in ascended gear simply makes you sub optimal.

any smart and sane individual could notice that your 2-hit example is bad, remember that our damage isn’t fixed, to the point where a full exotic player could hit harder than a full ascended, yes, in average ascended will do that extra 5%, but in short fights it becomes irrelevant

When Anet introduced vertical progression to the game in Nov 2012 they said that it would have a low power curve. Think back to algebra. What does an ascending curve describe? I’ll answer for us. It represents a positive relationship between the X and Y axes. That is, as X increases Y will also increase. The slope can be ‘low’ or steep.

Here the Y axis describes the power level of the game, while the X axis describes time. That is, as time increases, the power level of the game will increase. It is absurd to argue that this means it is optional to follow the ascent of the power curve. Anyone who has studied algebra would now this is absurd. The curve of VP doesn’t progress by stopping. It is mandatory to follow the curve if you expect to play the game over time. This is not my idea, it’s simply understanding the nature of a positive relationship between time and power.

people overlook skills have their own power scaling so 200 power is easily an 800 damage gain for some if power was thast irrelevant people wouldnt use Bloodlust sigil wich is currently one of the most sought in game and grants guess what 200 power points (250max) so i’d say 200 points is not the small deal some say

After Crit damage % nerf, there will be no reason to get ascended. Right now, the only reason to get it is for greater crit damage %.

And following on that note, in WvW, you don’t run zerker. If you do, even if you’re in ascended, you’re an easy kill. Roamers run hybrids and zerglings run full soldiers. With soldier gear, the difference is really, really minute. Thus, ascended really doesn’t make a difference in WvW.

TTS beat Tequatl the other day in their underwear (http://goo.gl/LPhGZO). That is, arguably, the second hardest encounter in the game at the moment. End game raid style content, that requires coordination, cooperation and communication as well as survivability and DPS under pressure of a strict time limit.

Underwear.

So yes, Ascended gear is optional for high level play. The elitist attitude concerning other people’s gear choices and what can or can’t be done with them…that is detrimental to the community.

My exotic geared necro poops all over ascended geared in wvw.

Verificus.4320:

Now to the part about it not mattering. Imagine this: You are in full exotic and get hit by a player for 10k dmg and you have 20.5k health. You can take two of those hits and survive with 500 hp and possibly win the fight. Now said player receives his 5% dmg boost through ascended gear and procedes to kill you in two hits.

- This is a false comparison you’re making. In reality it takes something like 8 hits to kill the average target in WvW and the number of hits depend greatly on how many critical hits you get.

It’s just as well. Let people think that statistical advantages are meaningless because it demonstrates their lack if understanding when it comes to math and the desire for a level playing field.

I went back to WoW. Much less grind there and their cash shop is entirely optional. Unlike here.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

I went back to WoW. Much less grind there and their cash shop is entirely optional. Unlike here.

Yeah one of those non-players who hang around the forums constantly reinforcing their decision to not play… Cash shop is optional btw not that I think it particularly matters to you, afterall you’re just here to troll.

If you desire a “level playing field” you should not be playing in WvW. By it’s very design it is not a level playing field. There are too many variables that affect the nature of that beast….

A “level playing field” is spvp.

Now, if WvW were capped to a few things:

-Only 80s allowed
-No masteries
-Exact same number of players per server per match up
-Locked to pvp armor and considered a pvp mode
-No superior siege

then it would be a level playing field.

Essentially it’d be GW1 AB on a larger scale, with 3 teams rather than 2.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

It’s just as well. Let people think that statistical advantages are meaningless because it demonstrates their lack if understanding when it comes to math and the desire for a level playing field.

I went back to WoW. Much less grind there and their cash shop is entirely optional. Unlike here.

Level playing field in PvP? You know sPvP doesn’t have item stats except for that amulet, right? Good riddance of such a narrow minded player.

Something that doesn’t get mentioned much is the effect that the person with out ascended armor also has lower armor. This combined with the person having higher stats makes the gap larger. If two guys of the same class both have full berserker gear and the only difference between the two is one is in full exotic and one is in full ascended gear. Then the guy in exotic is going to do less damage because of the stats and because the guy in ascended has higher armor. This makes the gap between them more than the 5% you see in the stats. This also causes the guy in ascended to do a lot more damage compared to what he is taking. This does affect WvW and PVE. Yes you can still do it all in your underwear if you wish but just because you want to kitten your self to create self imposed challenges does not mean that there is not a substantial benefit. In dungeons a full group in ascended is going to be faster than a group in full exotic if everything else is the same. In WvW a group/person in full ascended should beat a group/person in full exotic all other things being equal. This means that a player in exotic will do less damage and take more damage to/from a person in ascended armor of the same type – full berserker, full soldiers, etc. If it was just straight stats that would be one thing but the armor and the stats makes it a much larger gap.

Honestly though I don’t really care about the power creep of the ascended as long as they they stop there. I have more issues with the gold grind to get it.

PS – I do know armor is a stat but I never see anything about how it also comes into play only the DPS meter.

What Ascended is:

• A stat increase (no one should dispute this)
• An increase in the amount of time and/or effort to gain BiS items (since this is one of the stated reasons for it to exist, no one should dispute this, either)
• A perceived need (indisputable, no one gets to determine what someone else thinks they need or want)
• An increase in the overall effectiveness of the players’ characters (objectively provable; game effectiveness is determined by math; Ascended provides higher numbers)
• An enabler of arguments in the game’s community (dispute that one, I dare you)
• A gear tier that was implemented in a piecemeal and haphazard fashion (if Ascended had been a well-planned tier, stat increases would have been spread proportionally over the entire gear tier, using methodology consistent with other gear tiers already in the game. The Ascended tier stat increases are weighted towards trinkets, with the last implementation, armor, providing the smallest increases.)
• Cheaper to produce than robust cosmetic progression (throwing higher stats onto gear is a lot less resource intensive than producing weapon and especially armor skins)
• A change in direction for the game (statements were made before launch that looks, not stat increases, would be the game’s long-term goals)

What Ascended isn’t:

• A pass/fail requirement for participation in 99% of the game’s conduct (unlike raid gear in other games, content is not impossible without the higher numbers; I say 99% because it’s arguable that highest level fractals require infusions)
• The start of a gear treadmill (there is no design statement that additional tiers will follow, absent this, statements that there is a gear treadmill are premature)
• A violation of statements made in the Manifesto (ANet did make pre-launch statements to the effect that BiS would be readily attainable, but those statements were not in the Manifesto blog or video)
• Something that was necessary to retain players clamoring for something to do (there is zero proof that players would not have embraced cosmetic progression if additional, robust cosmetic options had been implemented instead of stat increases)

IndigoSundown.5419:

…

• An increase in the overall effectiveness of the players’ characters (objectively provable; game effectiveness is determined by math; Ascended provides higher numbers)

I disagree with this because I think player ability and attitude plays as large, if not larger role in their character’s effectiveness.

We have all seen that scrubby bear/bow Ranger with Kudzu that leans on auto-attack, and we have all seen that warrior in Ascended with Dusk that causes a wipe or keeps getting downed because they can’t play with a team.

You are totally abstracting the player out of the equation. Well if you want to do that, then apply it to both sides (math principles, yay!). A character fully geared in Ascended, if you remove the player, has a total 0% effectiveness.

The only way you can use numerics, strictly, to create tiers of effectiveness in twitch, reflex, or memory based game play is to consider an environment where all things besides gear are equal. That includes player, profession, personal abilities, hardware and network connection. And that environment is impossible to create.

You cannot conclude objectively that player A is more effective than player B solely based on gear.

Really? A player who is dealing 5 to 10% more damage than he would be while wearing exotics is not more effective?

So welcome to about a year ago why must ppl intent posting old info as if it new over and over is there a point that was not made from the last 100 ish thread just like this? The gear out there there nothing you can do about it GET OVER IT or get out.

Aioros.4862:

Really? A player who is dealing 5 to 10% more damage than he would be while wearing exotics is not more effective?

More effective than what? Himself in lower tier gear? Of course. The same as he would be more effective in masterwork than himself in uncommon gear. More effective than other players? …

Consider the basic principle of disregarding the human element. You have two cars, one is 10% faster than the other. Neither car has a driver. Which is the more effective race car? Neither. Because neither is able to act on its own.

Now lets add drivers. We put you in the faster car. And we put Dale Earnhardt Jr in the car that is 10% slower. Jr is going to win 2/3 by virtue of skill, knowledge, and experience. That 10% will not be enough to overcome the drivers ability. Now which was the more effective race car? In this case, it was the slower one. Since we know that regardless of the cars specs, without a driver it has zero effectiveness.

Now lets swap drivers. We put the more skilled driver in the faster car and we put you in the slower car. Did this change the outcome? No. The outcome is the same because the better driver was still in charge of the equipment.

Lastly let’s suppose you are as good a driver as Jr. You are both perfectly matched. Now the car would make a difference on a level playing field. So define a level playing field in GW game modes. WvW is not balanced and was never intended to be. PvE is cooperative. That leaves sPvP. There is no ascended gear in sPvP.

There is no scenario that I can come up with, that could be reproduced, where ascended gear is the determining factor in putting one player overwhelmingly over another. It will always come down to the player.

CureForLiving.5360:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

I went back to WoW. Much less grind there and their cash shop is entirely optional. Unlike here.

Yeah one of those non-players who hang around the forums constantly reinforcing their decision to not play… Cash shop is optional btw not that I think it particularly matters to you, afterall you’re just here to troll.

I paid full price for this game and got ripped off. I will continue to post as I wish because I paid for the privilege.

AcidicVision.5498:

Aioros.4862:

Really? A player who is dealing 5 to 10% more damage than he would be while wearing exotics is not more effective?

Consider the basic principle of disregarding the human element. You have two cars, one is 10% faster than the other. Neither car has a driver. Which is the more effective race car? Neither. Because neither is able to act on its own.

Now lets add drivers. We put you in the faster car. And we put Dale Earnhardt Jr in the car that is 10% slower. Jr is going to win 2/3 by virtue of skill, knowledge, and experience. That 10% will not be enough to overcome the drivers ability. Now which was the more effective race car? In this case, it was the slower one. Since we know that regardless of the cars specs, without a driver it has zero effectiveness.

Now lets swap drivers. We put the more skilled driver in the faster car and we put you in the slower car. Did this change the outcome? No. The outcome is the same because the better driver was still in charge of the equipment.

Lastly let’s suppose you are as good a driver as Jr. You are both perfectly matched. Now the car would make a difference on a level playing field. So define a level playing field in GW game modes. WvW is not balanced and was never intended to be. PvE is cooperative. That leaves sPvP. There is no ascended gear in sPvP.

There is no scenario that I can come up with, that could be reproduced, where ascended gear is the determining factor in putting one player overwhelmingly over another. It will always come down to the player.

Now lets get YOU in a Ford driving 150 km/h from A to B.
And then lets get YOU in a Ferrari driving 200 km/h from A to B.
What car will get you there in the least amount of time?

And now lets get you in exotic gear, do damage to a target.
Then let’s get you in same type of ascended gear and do damage to the same target.
What set of gear made you kill the target faster?
(Depending on gear type and If you like you can also do the reverse and see what tier of gear makes you last longer too).

Alright the reality is that 5%-10% more effectiveness in gear does make a difference, but that 5%-10% can be made up by player skill or build effectiveness fairly easily. In a WvW environment this is a bigger deal than PvE.

If you run exotics think of all those times you have had 5%-10% health left, or the enemy had 5%-10% health left. That time when the rest of the team downed and the dungeon boss was practically at 0% health, everyone else was dead you down/die before finishing him off. That time when you were in WvW and you come across another player in an evenly matched fight, only to be 0.3 seconds away from using healing skill or taking him out, only to be downed by a 1K hit with 950 health left.

Only if you were that 5% more effective defensively or offensively, you would have gotten off your heal, your CC, or your burst damage or whatever was needed in order to succeed, but instead downed, died and failed. That’s where ascended gear comes in. It may be expensive, but it is an improvement of at least 5% effectiveness that can be exploited by skilled players. You can deny the cost to bonus ratio of Ascended and whether its worth it, but if you want to be 100% optimal for yourself and your teammates, you want to get full ascended gear.

If you don’t, I would suggest getting at least ascended jewelry and weapons, since that’s where the majority of the 5% bonus is and they’re fairly easy/cheap to get. Armor pieces are less needed and very costly, but can add an extra 50-100 more armor (depending on gear stats) which is still helpful for incoming damage calculations and can be used to round off stats so they look pretty.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

CureForLiving.5360:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

I went back to WoW. Much less grind there and their cash shop is entirely optional. Unlike here.

Yeah one of those non-players who hang around the forums constantly reinforcing their decision to not play… Cash shop is optional btw not that I think it particularly matters to you, afterall you’re just here to troll.

I paid full price for this game and got ripped off. I will continue to post as I wish because I paid for the privilege.

As someone who’s normally against this sort of thing, I still find myself 100% agreeing with you. You bought a product, the same as I did, and it wasn’t even close to what you paid for. Complain away. If that’s the only satisfaction you can get from that $60, take it and run with it.

It was closer, and then it was not anymore. Good old bait and switch.

KarateKid.5648:

mtpelion.4562:

All content other than high level fractals is available for relatively easy completion without ascended gear, thus ascended gear is optional gear that simply makes things slightly easier.

This is not WoW, where the next tier is effectively mandatory because without it you fail the DPS or AR check.

Armor I won’t argue because surviving one-shots a portion of the time is legit.

DPS, on the other hand: In a typical boss fight, ascended/legendary equate to shortening the fight by so little it makes them not worth the hassle of crafting them.

Yeah, 20% greater dps for a full ascended zerker set is definitely not noticeable
…oh wait.

Are you sure it’s really that much of a difference?

:\ You know the idiom “beating a dead horse”… The forums are a little bit more morbid than that, we constantly keep digging up the dead horse and continually beating on it to later bury it and dig it up again.

That said, and by the thing in my signature (though only related to asc weapons), I find the way ascended is implemented right now is done poorly, and unnecessary too.

But. They already had a CDI topic on this, I don’t think it’s really necessary to keep beating on it further… Now we just have to wait (hopefully not too long…) and see what course of action they do take.

Aioros.4862:

Are you sure it’s really that much of a difference?

To answer:

Verificus.4320:

…
A warrior with berserker gear, assuming no traits spent, food used or any buffs what so ever has the following stats with full berserker gear and scholar runes:

2083 Power
1614 Precision
69% CD

Same warrior with ascended gear, scholar runes and stat infusions:

2238 7,4%
1661 2,9%
79% CD 14,5%

That’s a 7,4% boost in power, a 2,9% boost in precision and 14,5% boost in crit damage.
Ofcourse someone else can prolly do the math on this and conclude this averages around a 5% boost in total dps output, however the claim most people make is that it’s a 5% STAT boost, which as you can see is not true.
…

2238 – 2083 = 155
1661 – 1614 = 47
79 – 69 = 10

So yeah, mathematically, there is a difference… or “it makes a difference”. "Much, it’s more than 1 difference it’s more than 2 … Where do you draw the line on what “much” means… I mean is there much of a difference between rares and exotics? or greens and rares… or blues and greens, or whites and blues… (yet for some odd reason… we tend to upgrade… I don’t even know what that reason is…)

Aioros.4862:

Are you sure it’s really that much of a difference?

Yes, math has been done many times. It’s 5% for only the weapon, with the stats adding more. In zerker set it’s most noticeable since all the stats contribute to damage, but notice that even in pure defensive stat set (which doesn’t even exist – all ascended sets have at least one damage related stat) it would have been that 5% dps increase from weapon base damage increase only.

I blame modern day television advertising for the argument that is going on over ascended gear.

“Buy Nike running shoes. You’ll run faster!”

I have never worried about gear in an MMORPG. At the end of the day, I still suck at the game. With ascended gear, I’d still suck.

Zero Day.2594:

So yeah, mathematically, there is a difference… or “it makes a difference”. "Much, it’s more than 1 difference it’s more than 2 … Where do you draw the line on what “much” means… I mean is there much of a difference between rares and exotics? or greens and rares… or blues and greens, or whites and blues… (yet for some odd reason… we tend to upgrade… I don’t even know what that reason is…)

That 1 line post was meant for Astralporing’s post saying it was 20% difference for a warrior in zerker gear.

TChalla.7146:

I blame modern day television advertising for the argument that is going on over ascended gear.

“Buy Nike running shoes. You’ll run faster!”

I have never worried about gear in an MMORPG. At the end of the day, I still suck at the game. With ascended gear, I’d still suck.

You’d suck more in exotics.

Zero Day.2594:

:\ You know the idiom “beating a dead horse”… The forums are a little bit more morbid than that, we constantly keep digging up the dead horse and continually beating on it to later bury it and dig it up again.

If it were easy to get most of these people wouldn’t be complaining. Its the combination of being expensive, and having time gates so you cant just pay your way to it directly that gets folks riled up.

On the opposite side of the coin, if we didn’t have those hoops, then while these guys wouldn’t be complaining anymore, the forums would be flooded with the “I have legendaries and full ascended on all my characters and don’t like dungeons so I have nothing to do. game is dead” people.

It was a no win scenario for Anet. IMO the rollout was rocky and could have been handled better, but the strategy was sound. Have a tier that takes time to get, that isn’t crucial to completion of any PvE content, has minimal impact if any on WvW and is left out of sPvP entirely.

As demonstrated by Dark Catalyst some people would rather to come a games forums and complain about it than spend their time playing something they enjoy. Personally I would rather have added content and progressive goals and the occasional “Ascended is unfair” QQ thread, than no added content and “We need more progression” QQ threads. If we have to hear it, might as well get something out of it.

TChalla.7146:

I have never worried about gear in an MMORPG. At the end of the day, I still suck at the game. With ascended gear, I’d still suck.

ROFL – now that was priceless!

Congratz on the funny as hell self-deprecating humor.

TChalla.7146:

I blame modern day television advertising for the argument that is going on over ascended gear.

“Buy Nike running shoes. You’ll run faster!”

I have never worried about gear in an MMORPG. At the end of the day, I still suck at the game. With ascended gear, I’d still suck.

Except its not the same argument. One (Nike Shoes) is based off real world variables like how fast you can actually run, whether your problem was your shoe fitting improperly and the fact that Nike shoes being able to make you run faster may be utterly subjective advertising.

What were talking about is a virtual world where all stats, gears and skills are computed based on known premade code and equations where we can actually see and prove there’s an actual bonus from getting more effective gear and by how much in most circumstances.

Now get the gear and stop sucking!!!! You will be pro after getting Ascended gear!!!

Seriously gear could be the issue though for you. I always find if you don’t feel your great at a game(s), optimizing your character(s) is more important for completing stuff compared to someone who’s super pro that kills the hardest boss with no armor and his character’s fists. You may still suck, but you shalt suck less.