Guild Wars 2

Doam.8305:

Actually my heal is worthless now too because it relies on clones on the field for passive regeneration and shattering prevents that regen so more than just gear needs to be changed with the trait changes and trait removals they are doing in this game.

This is far from true. It does mean that you need to be a bit more aware of cool downs and when you choose to shatter. That’s not a bad thing necessarily.

Can we get an official word on how this’ll be handled? It is a serious issue that will affect many players when the trait changes hit.

But what difference does it matter knowing before the fact?

Knowing that it’s on ArenaNet’s radar and that they are concerned about how it impacts the play of their existing players directly correlates to how much actual, real money I generate for ArenaNet during the period leading up to the patch.

Basically, I’m waiting to see how ArenaNet chooses to handle this before giving them any more cash for Gems. A confirmation would mean that I’d have the confidence to continue sinking money into the game and could buy pretty-shinies on the Trading Post.

So you are looking for any reply or a particular one? Because from my point of view, assuming that we aren’t getting one and plan accordingly means preparing for the worse but allowing the chance of being surprised. In either case I’m not planning to spend any coin guessing the true impact until it’s in front of me.

Given the monumental changes coming in the patch, I feel this is only right. Some people will be more affected than others, but offering the option can only be a good thing.

Well, I can give a list of likely replies and my probable reaction to them.

1. The reply that I would like is: “Yes, unnamed soulbound exotics and all ascended items will get a stat choice.”
2. The reply that I would accept is: “We are aware of the concern, and are looking at ways to address player compensation for the changes we are making.”
3. The reply that I would understand, but be dissatisfied with is: “We can not discuss any ideas at this time due to possible impact on the market, but we have heard your concerns.”
4. The reply that would probably make me give up on ANet is: “We do not plan to compensate players for these changes.”

You can probably start giving up already then, since the last reply is the most likely one.
They can’t go around giving people free respecs after every single big change.

It is also a matter of crafting and the market.
If it is assumed (which will be the case if they allow free respecs for this) that future big changes will give respecs, what stops people from just crafting the cheapest Ascended gear and then get it transformed to a “better” set for free with the change?

The market distortion works the other way too, and in a manner that negatively impacts players: massive price spikes in crafting materials due to speculators and the entire gamebase rushing to recraft all their existing equipment at once. That scenario is the one that concerns myself the most, since I don’t have near the funds to re-exotic all my characters even at current prices if I need to, let alone double or triple the cost.

ROMzombie.5196:

The market distortion works the other way too, and in a manner that negatively impacts players: massive price spikes in crafting materials due to speculators and the entire gamebase rushing to recraft all their existing equipment at once. That scenario is the one that concerns myself the most, since I don’t have near the funds to re-exotic all my characters even at current prices if I need to, let alone double or triple the cost.

So if you think it is going to do that, why aren’t you buying now so that you can sell for double or triple the price?

ROMzombie.5196:

Can we get an official word on how this’ll be handled? It is a serious issue that will affect many players when the trait changes hit.

You do have an official answer: Source

Gaile Gray.6029:

It’s premature for you to ask for compensation for a system that has not been fully outlined or fully explored by you, as a player. I suggest your consider how long and how much use you got out of your items to reassure yourself you got full value. Also consider how every person who was unhappy with a balance build could make the a similar demand, and realize how unhealthy and unrealistic such a set of demands would be.
Wait for more information, please, before leaping to conclusions or making requests of this nature.

dietzero.3514:

Sorin.4310:

dietzero.3514:

heartless.6803:

Umm, the builds you used before will use the same gear now. Thats not getting changed.

Now new builds will use new gear stats but that hasn’t changed since the dawn of the game.

If your build and gear isn’t considered “meta” when the patch hits then thats your fault for following meta and not just playing a spec and gear you enjoy.

This is not true at all. Many builds rely on getting different stats from their traits than what is on their armour.

Whether you realize it or not, that was poor build design, and maybe why they are removing stats from lines altogether. People were unaware they were making bad builds. Picking a trait was always more beneficial than picking a stat. You might make some argument that there wasn’t enough useful traits so then it just went to stats, but they’ve given the impression this might be remedied by removing some of the useless traits, and making some of the lackluster one’s default skill changes (larger AoE on symbols for example).

Ok?

Many builds relied on the stats from traits to supplement their gear, which had different stats.

Yeah. Bad builds. Except for bringing spotter and EA for phalanx. The guardian one for WvW. But none of those changes (if they are going away) req new gear set ups.

they should indeed mail a box containing a full set of gear with selectable stats
including celestial i noticed none of the selectable stat gear has cele as option

better yet tie gear stats to unlocked craft gear stats

Vavume.8065:

Having thought about it a bit more they may well extend a re stat to exotics, since after all they did that with the magic find gear, so why not I guess.

B/c the change to Magic Find removed the stat from gear completely and leaving people with lvl 80 gear with only two stats would be unfair? That’s not at all, in any way, what is happening with HoT, despite the silly hyperbole in this thread.

Tman.6349:

Vavume.8065:

Having thought about it a bit more they may well extend a re stat to exotics, since after all they did that with the magic find gear, so why not I guess.

B/c the change to Magic Find removed the stat from gear completely

Technically it replaced stat sets with MF with new ones (assassin, for example). It’s just that instead of doing it retroactively on gear in player posession, Anet decided to grant them a restat option. Unless they were using Celestial – in that case they were out of luck.

Any comment from ANet staff on this? The big stat change is next week, according to announcements, and we haven’t seen any news of a respec being possible.

1) Players grind/craft for gear with Gear+Build stat pairings.
2) ANet removes Build stats, leaving only Gear.
3) Some players need to re-grind/craft gear to compensate for lagging stats, while others (zerk, for instance) are affected only by a reduction in degree of efficacy.
4) Market spikes on crafted Exotics as people try to purchase complete gear sets, and tiered crafting materials used in the construction of Ascended gear.
5) Existing players are very frustrated going into a pre-order period for the expansion.

The solution is pretty easy: why not add a Forge recipe that takes one of the new spirit shards + a piece of gear, and gets you back a “blank” of that gear type with selectable stats, exotic for exotic, ascended for ascended.

While I agree with you in principal, I would like to point out that they also added even more stacking conditions on crits with the confusion on crit, and sum of all fears traits.

Rampager’s gear might end up not being completely worthless.