Guild Wars 2

Originally posted on Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3agec8/with_the_possibility_to_change_stats_on_ascended/

First off, while the upcoming ability to change the stats on your ascended gear is awesome, the fact that you lose your upgrades is not so great. The stat-changing method is a mystic forge recipe so it’s not really avoidable, in which case I think it would be really useful if Upgrade Extractors weren’t so prohibitively expensive.

Currently the extractors are 250 gems each, or 44g (down to 200 gems each if you buy 25 at once). The only upgrades that cost more than these are high level agony infusions (10 or greater), sigils that aren’t available any more (Karka Slaying and Generosity), ultra rare gems (Undulating Refractors and Queen Bee) and the Fine (5 stat) infusions that take a stack of T6 fine mats. For everything else you’d be better off just buying a new upgrade. Likewise, in almost all cases but ascended and legendaries, you’d be better off using a Black Lion Salvage Kit to destroy your gear and buy new stuff over using an upgrade extractor.

In the worst case of having a +5 fine infusion on ten main pieces of gear, the cost to remove them all is almost 450 gold. Just removing upgrades from an armour set would be almost 270 gold.

I think it would be a lot more beneficial if Upgrade Extractors were brought down to a more reasonable price, say 75 gems each, or 5 for 350 gems. This would set their (current) value at around 13g each, still above the price that would mean they’re an option for removing most upgrades, but far more reasonable for players that would like to change the stats on their ascended gear and want to preserve their high-end upgrades.