Guild Wars 2

PopeUrban.2578:

I just like that people are touting “equipment elitism” in a game that introduced the top tier of gear ever in its first year of release.

I also like that those same people are mad that “better gear” drops in a raid they think they can’t do… because they don’t care about their gear in the first place?

It isn’t the game’s fault that certain people saw that there was more powerful gear in the game and wen “nah, I don’t need that. Not like it’ll make me better at insert whatever activity you do is by 5%.”

It is literally mind boggling that in a game where virtually all of your stats come from gear, the gear is trivial to obtain given a long enough stretch of time, and the primary content is combat that utilized those stats people saw better armor for years and went “I don’t want that”.

It wasn’t like they locked ascended stuff behind a raid, or dungeon, or even doing anything remotely difficult. They literally give you half the set for logging in at this point. How much easier to acquire could it get?

How the heck is this even an issue?

They said you don’t need it so you were like “K, I don’t want it”

How do you not want better gear? How can you not want better gear for years and then suddenly be mad that “better gear” is rewarded by a challenging piece of content?

This method of thinking makes no sense to me. it’s not that you’re wrong or anything. It just… does not compute.

I do want better weapons and armor. Have been trying to get BiS since launch.

What I do not want is to craft.

Currently, after 3+ years, I have one ascended weapon and two pieces of armor.

Shortly after launch, when exotics were BiS, I had multiple sets of armor and weapons for different builds/playstyles. Do I dislike the fact that BiS was taken away from me and that 3 years of play later I still dont have it back? Absolutely.

Ascended trinkets (including the back item) are easy and cheap to get. They’ve been around for years and are normally the first ascended items that players acquire. Ascended weapons are usually the next item gone after. All of these provide a 10.40% increase in DPS.

Ascended armor, which currently costs around 460G for a full light set, provides only a 1.82% increase in DPS. I doubt that raids would be so strict that a 1.82% difference in DPS would cause a group to fail versus succeed. Ascended weapons cost between 50-60G to make.

Weaponsmithing costs 106G, Huntsman 107G, and Artificer 131G. The crafting profession costs are based on sell prices so you can level then cheaper by placing buy orders. The bulk of the cost for them is ancient wood logs which have a sell price of 7.8 silver each. Farm those to reduce your costs unless you feel you can farm gold quicker than you can the nodes.

Weapons and armor can also be acquired multiple ways in the game. Fractals give them more frequently but there’s RNG in regards to armor when it comes to which pice you’ll get. You could get three shoulder chests in a row for example.

Cyninja.2954:

Agreed, and then once everything has reverted back to people wearing “zerker gear” we will have the same * come out of the woodwork demanding for alternative gear choices being viable in a game design and combat system that simply asks for maximum damage.

Which is dumb, because the system as we have it will never allow it. But that’s what we get for Anet trying to mix two incompatible systems in one game.

Well I’m out, Colin straight up lied to us regarding benchmarks having to be met in order to raid, ascended gear was supposed to be optional, only providing us with an expensive slowly gated way to acquire ascended gear, and still leaving enough of a disparity between respective classes DPS that there will be a Meta group that excludes others.

I will give ANet one week to reconsider before I out in a request for a refund, money talks every one remember that.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Well I’m out, Colin straight up lied to us regarding benchmarks having to be met in order to raid, ascended gear was supposed to be optional, only providing us with an expensive slowly gated way to acquire ascended gear, and still leaving enough of a disparity between respective classes DPS that there will be a Meta group that excludes others.

I will give ANet one week to reconsider before I out in a request for a refund, money talks every one remember that.

It still is optional…

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Well I’m out, Colin straight up lied to us regarding benchmarks having to be met in order to raid, ascended gear was supposed to be optional, only providing us with an expensive slowly gated way to acquire ascended gear, and still leaving enough of a disparity between respective classes DPS that there will be a Meta group that excludes others.

I will give ANet one week to reconsider before I out in a request for a refund, money talks every one remember that.

Or again, the designer in the tweet said something stupid and inaccurate and they’re still trying to manage the blowback without throwing them under the bus :p

Azumi.9572:

Raids are going to be semi-dead content within a timeframe of a year.

Look at TA Aether path (hardest/longest Dungeon), high level Fractuals (50+), Arah (Hardest Vanilla Dungeon).

These things don’t have large participation. Fractals 50 might be done by 10% of the playerbase, Aether less so and Arah maybe a bit moreso.

These are, right now the ‘hardest content’ in the PvE game. And the playerbase by and large, isn’t playing them.

The thing is a good 90% of Guild Wars 2 playerbase are just like 95% of the game – casual players. They don’t want to do the hardest content.

And while some excuses can be made for Aether (Pointless/Long) and Arah (Long/Pointless) Fractals are the end-game right now for PvE and once you get up to a certain scale (Like 41+) the population starts thinning considerably.

If Raids are as challenging as they are being hyped up to be (Mostly by players with side comments from aNet people) then it’s going to be content the majority simply never bothers with.

So two things are going to happen:

The people doing the Raids quit due to boredom (Doing the same thing over and over and over) and Raids eventually die;

aNet nerfs Raids to bring in my players, thereby lessening the challenge of said content.

I know the GW2 playerbase. These people will play this game and do whatever casuals do (World Boss, SW Grinding, etc.) until they get bored then they’ll move on to the next game. They won’t enter Raids or level 80+ Fractals.

And the people doing that content will make it all they do. You’ll have them log in once a week to run their raid (‘Raid Night’) and eventually a new shiny will appear and they won’t log in at all.

I cannot see Raids being successful in this game with this playerbase.

You Sir/Makitten ail it

Ayrilana.1396:

Ascended armor, which currently costs around 460G for a full light set, provides only a 1.82% increase in DPS. I doubt that raids would be so strict that a 1.82% difference in DPS would cause a group to fail versus succeed.

We’re just taking ANet’s raid designers at face value. They are straight-up telling us that the first two bosses in a wing will can be done with an Asc/Exo mix with a top tier group and that the third boss will require full Ascended. This is not conjecture, this is the Word of kittening God.

Either ANet lied to us when they originally said all PvE content could be cleared in Exo gear, or they’re lying to us now. But you can’t get around the fact that they lied about gear requirements.

Meh, i don’t have much hope for raids in GW2, because there’s no trinity. I’m going to wait and see if it works before condemning them though. For raiding, i’ll stick to WoW or WS for now.

tobascodagama.2961:

Ayrilana.1396:

Ascended armor, which currently costs around 460G for a full light set, provides only a 1.82% increase in DPS. I doubt that raids would be so strict that a 1.82% difference in DPS would cause a group to fail versus succeed.

We’re just taking ANet’s raid designers at face value. They are straight-up telling us that the first two bosses in a wing will can be done with an Asc/Exo mix with a top tier group and that the third boss will require full Ascended. This is not conjecture, this is the Word of kittening God.

Either ANet lied to us when they originally said all PvE content could be cleared in Exo gear, or they’re lying to us now. But you can’t get around the fact that they lied about gear requirements.

Ascended is not required. They only said it was recommended.

tobascodagama.2961:

We’re just taking ANet’s raid designers at face value. They are straight-up telling us that the first two bosses in a wing will can be done with an Asc/Exo mix with a top tier group and that the third boss will require full Ascended. This is not conjecture, this is the Word of kittening God.

Either ANet lied to us when they originally said all PvE content could be cleared in Exo gear, or they’re lying to us now. But you can’t get around the fact that they lied about gear requirements.

Funny how selective people are when it comes to “taking ANet’s raid designers at face value”.

Ayrilana.1396:

I doubt that raids would be so strict that a 1.82% difference in DPS would cause a group to fail versus succeed.

I assumed it was for the extra armor, not the extra DPS, that makes ascended highly recommended.

rhapsody.3615:

Ayrilana.1396:

I doubt that raids would be so strict that a 1.82% difference in DPS would cause a group to fail versus succeed.

I assumed it was for the extra armor, not the extra DPS, that makes ascended highly recommended.

Extra armor? Isn’t it like 8 armor more than exotic? I can’t remember.

I want to come in and give some input concerning the difference between exotic and ascended. As Colin has come out and corrected that Ascended rarity is recommended, but not required.

Now, a lot of misinformation have been floating around concerning the increase in stats of ascended equipment in comparison to exotic. 5%, 10% ? I would like give an approximate difference here.

First of all, I don’t deny that looking at the pieces of armor or weapons or accessories pieces alone, the stat increase of the piece itself is yes around 5-10% difference and for weapon strength ~5% increase, and defense from armor is also about ~5% increase.

What cause the misconception is, that a 10% increase in the piece stat does not equate in 10% increase of overall stats and even more, does not equate to 10% increase in DPS. It is similarly misunderstood for effective health. So here is a spreadsheet I made a while ago showing the comparison in EP (which often scale to direct DPS since it’s a multiplier … condi damage aside, I haven’t calculated it). I don’t claim it to be 100% accurate because traits and stuffs are not taken into account. It’s just a general comparison

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eNgeDoVO9aIqqqYHYTC_IjV0H3eOm7ZL1WNour02cE0/edit#gid=340962016

If you read it, you can see several points that I’ll note here:

1. The infusion difference compare no a non infused character is about 1.98% (Those 3000+ powerful blood yo)

2. The difference between ascended+trinket+weapon to full ascended non infused is about 1.43%. So yes the 400g+ armor set gives you 1.45% increase in dps compare to one without.

3. If you have full ascended and DON’T use food, you’re 2.91% behind one using food. This is where it’s interesting. Compare this to the nonascended armor and use food, you’re actually worse off.

4. The ascended weapon contribute to 5% difference so it’s noted on the 5th column of a 8.71% dps loss if you don’t have an ascended weapon.

5. Other columns are other stats, soldier, valk, celes, etc.

I hope you enjoy the info.

So, what’s the conclusion? I don’t think the 1.43% dps loss is something to fret about. If you really worry, then you should just concentrate on getting ascended trinket (which actually are cheaper than exotic) and the ascended weapons.

If it was just about that 1.x%, i wouldn t complain this much..and so other decractors (although it would still be unfair competion, “grind not skill”).
but 10%dps or more can heavily affect a fight.
let’s assume that raid is, as devs said, designed around BiS gear, to be challenging for the best gear available: without that 10% dps, it’s quite possible that closing the raid may become much more difficult, or even impossible.
And if we talk about masteries locking raid wings (and it definitely can be a huge timesink)…or, once again, that kitten AR.

We’re talking about the common issue of any other mmo available.
Well done, the nogrind game, the enjoy-game-from-first-login game, the no-treadmill game.

They have to choose one path: a skill based game (that does nt mean casual: it just means that you can access any part of the game even at the first login…but complete it only if you’re skilled enogh, without differences in gear stats and any other unfair help) or the typical timegated/bestgear/unlockendgamebygrind game.
there is no half way between.

Ashen.2907:

PopeUrban.2578:

I just like that people are touting “equipment elitism” in a game that introduced the top tier of gear ever in its first year of release.

I also like that those same people are mad that “better gear” drops in a raid they think they can’t do… because they don’t care about their gear in the first place?

It isn’t the game’s fault that certain people saw that there was more powerful gear in the game and wen “nah, I don’t need that. Not like it’ll make me better at insert whatever activity you do is by 5%.”

It is literally mind boggling that in a game where virtually all of your stats come from gear, the gear is trivial to obtain given a long enough stretch of time, and the primary content is combat that utilized those stats people saw better armor for years and went “I don’t want that”.

It wasn’t like they locked ascended stuff behind a raid, or dungeon, or even doing anything remotely difficult. They literally give you half the set for logging in at this point. How much easier to acquire could it get?

How the heck is this even an issue?

They said you don’t need it so you were like “K, I don’t want it”

How do you not want better gear? How can you not want better gear for years and then suddenly be mad that “better gear” is rewarded by a challenging piece of content?

This method of thinking makes no sense to me. it’s not that you’re wrong or anything. It just… does not compute.

I do want better weapons and armor. Have been trying to get BiS since launch.

What I do not want is to craft.

Currently, after 3+ years, I have one ascended weapon and two pieces of armor.

Shortly after launch, when exotics were BiS, I had multiple sets of armor and weapons for different builds/playstyles. Do I dislike the fact that BiS was taken away from me and that 3 years of play later I still dont have it back? Absolutely.

If I remeber correctly, the fact that shortly after launch that you and all of us had several top tier sets for every conceivable situation was why they added ascended in the first place though, right?

Like, Colin basically said “we want top tier stats to be a more meaningful and long term achievement.”

Now, I agree that the time gates built in to ascended crafting combined with making it all account bound was a bad idea.

We know that the economy is crafting centric, but given the investment required to go from 400-500 I don’t think it would have hurt much to simply let people craft and sell ascended gear to people.

I somewhat agree with you there. Even though crafting takes literally zero effort and is not challenging in any way, it seems arbitrary to require every player to level it just to maintain the economic status quo in a resource based economy.

I mean, the crafted pieces all have the same skin (with different colors) They’re not particularly rare, just expensive to make (which is fine)

I fail to see the difference in grind between trading currency to another player (with an AH fee tacked on) or gathering all the doodads to craft a piece.

I get having to earn prestige skins through special effort, and maybe there should be some kind of special untradable skin like the backpacks for people that craft their own stuff, but I kind of agree with you. Why can’t I just sell you some ascended gear and make a profit? Seems like a win/win. Crafters have a reason to learn even more ascended recipies, and a motivation to keep crafting. Non-crafters don’t have to level it. Keep the time gates in place to stimulate trade and still give incentive to level crafting.

Leave the infusion slots/infusions the way they are now, as either 100 artificer or dumping stuff in the MF are easy to do, and the amount of time you have to spend in a menu doing it is almost nonexistant compared to the time spent gathering the stuff to make them. That way players would still have to do some personal work to get that last little stat bump but wouldn’t have to level 2+ toons worth of crafting to 500?

Kevan.8912:

If it was just about that 1.x%, i wouldn t complain this much..and so other decractors (although it would still be unfair competion, “grind not skill”).
but 10%dps or more can heavily affect a fight.
let’s assume that raid is, as devs said, designed around BiS gear, to be challenging for the best gear available: without that 10% dps, it’s quite possible that closing the raid may become much more difficult, or even impossible.
And if we talk about masteries locking raid wings (and it definitely can be a huge timesink)…or, once again, that kitten AR.

We’re talking about the common issue of any other mmo available.
Well done, the nogrind game, the enjoy-game-from-first-login game, the no-treadmill game.

They have to choose one path: a skill based game (that does nt mean casual: it just means that you can access any part of the game even at the first login…but complete it only if you’re skilled enogh, without differences in gear stats and any other unfair help) or the typical timegated/bestgear/unlockendgamebygrind game.
there is no half way between.

It’s not 10% DPS increase. If you actually look at my spreadsheet. It’s more of a 1.45% dps increase for the ascended armor. If you only use exotic weapon, then the difference is ~9%. So get an ascended weapon. It’s about 80g ish. Ascended trinkets are a must and easily obtainable. Play for 1 month, join a guild, do daily fractals and weekly mission, voila.

Not using food, it’s worse. On top of that there are other issues and ascended armor is the least one should be worried about. For example:

That enchanted combat booster from the gemstore? It’s 5% increase in DPS, Defense and Speed. Talking about pay to win.

I somewhat agree with you there. Even though crafting takes literally zero effort and is not challenging in any way, it seems arbitrary to require every player to level it just to maintain the economic status quo in a resource based economy.

This is a fair point, some people just really don’t like to craft. Here’s a suggestion, why don’t they allow crafters to make “Unfitted Armor?” Unfitted armor would take all the gold-value crafting components of regular ascended, but none of the account-bound stuff, like Vision Crystals. Crafters could then sell the “unfitted armor” on the marketplace. All the account-bound bits could be crafted by any profession with zero skill in it, so even people with no crafting could just pick a discipline and get to crafting those using their own mats. Then a player could buy the unfitted armor and throw it into the forge with the account-bound bits, resulting in a finished armor. The total cost would end up being about the same to the person crafting it, so it would make it around a 15-30% mark-up on the TP to account for profit margins, but it would mean that you wouldn’t need to learn to craft yourself.

I still think overall costs should come down, but even that aside, this would provide both a useful alternative for those that don’t want to bother with crafting, and a useful profit source for those with maxed crafting.

Cyninja.2954:

phys.7689:

And the main thing is you shouldnt have to grind for a month or more after hitting 80 to try a you re first raid. No raid mmo i have ever seen did that.

Except for the biggest raid MMO out there, WoW. Or do you truly want to tell me, people got into motlen core straight off the bat after hitting 60? Or Black Temple straight once they hit 70? There were even attunement quests which took hours to just be allowed to enter. (I could go on, but I guess you get my point)

Also, no one says you can’t give raids a shot in exotics, just that you won’t get that far. No one forces you to wait a month too. You can craft full ascended equipment within minutes.

my friends who tried to get me to play wow say you can usually get the gear to attempt the top raid in less than a month(from level 1). to attempt the first raids are substantially less.
You mention hours for attunement, but people here are talking about 30 days AFTER you hit 80 for the most effecient playstyle. thats not a small amount.

PopeUrban.2578:

If I remeber correctly, the fact that shortly after launch that you and all of us had several top tier sets for every conceivable situation was why they added ascended in the first place though, right?

Wrong. They added it, because people were asking for more content, and Anet at that time was unable to deliver. Gear grind (yes, they fully intended going hamster wheel with gear then, which is clear if you look at their posts from that time) was just a cheap substitute for introducing new zones, events, boss fights and dungeons. It was also a kneejerk panic reaction to the content locust leaving the game, that was most likely done without much of a forethought (because at the time they made it game was still fresh, and they didn’t have any meaningful data they could base it on yet).

Astralporing.1957:

PopeUrban.2578:

If I remeber correctly, the fact that shortly after launch that you and all of us had several top tier sets for every conceivable situation was why they added ascended in the first place though, right?

Wrong. They added it, because people were asking for more content, and Anet at that time was unable to deliver. Gear grind (yes, they fully intended going hamster wheel with gear then, which is clear if you look at their posts from that time) was just a cheap substitute for introducing new zones, events, boss fights and dungeons. It was also a kneejerk panic reaction to the content locust leaving the game, that was most likely done without much of a forethought (because at the time they made it game was still fresh, and they didn’t have any meaningful data they could base it on yet).

well from what i hear, anet dev team was always afraid they needed to add grind. A sizable portion of the staff didnt believe in the quick gear vision. So most likely they interpreted the problem as one of grind. Though ascended rings were probably the least grindy addition.

kinda funny how the grind kept increasing per gear type.

Anyhow they made ascended a huge grind, which doesnt really make it an appropriate gate. Especially for a content which they want people to try different builds and experiment.
they must think everyone can just hit the free gear button like they can in the dev environment

Astralporing.1957:

PopeUrban.2578:

If I remeber correctly, the fact that shortly after launch that you and all of us had several top tier sets for every conceivable situation was why they added ascended in the first place though, right?

Wrong. They added it, because people were asking for more content, and Anet at that time was unable to deliver. Gear grind (yes, they fully intended going hamster wheel with gear then, which is clear if you look at their posts from that time) was just a cheap substitute for introducing new zones, events, boss fights and dungeons. It was also a kneejerk panic reaction to the content locust leaving the game, that was most likely done without much of a forethought (because at the time they made it game was still fresh, and they didn’t have any meaningful data they could base it on yet).

Totally agree.
They had a lot of choices to implement a wholly horizontal progression, as the game was brand new.
They just opted for easy timesink (instead of working more elaborated content like maps or other) as any other mmorpg…and also tried to lure in the wow-derived “locusts” who woudn’t play without a new BiS to grind.
Betraying their original audience.

Astralporing.1957:

PopeUrban.2578:

If I remeber correctly, the fact that shortly after launch that you and all of us had several top tier sets for every conceivable situation was why they added ascended in the first place though, right?

Wrong. They added it, because people were asking for more content, and Anet at that time was unable to deliver. Gear grind (yes, they fully intended going hamster wheel with gear then, which is clear if you look at their posts from that time) was just a cheap substitute for introducing new zones, events, boss fights and dungeons. It was also a kneejerk panic reaction to the content locust leaving the game, that was most likely done without much of a forethought (because at the time they made it game was still fresh, and they didn’t have any meaningful data they could base it on yet).

“We designed the process of getting Legendary gear to be a long term goal, but players were ready to start on that path much sooner than we expected and were becoming frustrated with a lack of personal progression. Our desire is to create a game that is more inclusive for hardcore and casual players alike, but we don’t want to overlook the basic need for players to feel like they are progressing and growing even after hitting max level. Adding item progression is a delicate process normally undertaken in an expansion, but we feel it’s important to strive to satisfy the basic needs of our players sooner rather than later.”

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/

It was quite literally about personal gear progression being meaningful, not a filler for content.

Skywing.4836:

I want to come in and give some input concerning the difference between exotic and ascended. As Colin has come out and corrected that Ascended rarity is recommended, but not required.

Now, a lot of misinformation have been floating around concerning the increase in stats of ascended equipment in comparison to exotic. 5%, 10% ? I would like give an approximate difference here.

First of all, I don’t deny that looking at the pieces of armor or weapons or accessories pieces alone, the stat increase of the piece itself is yes around 5-10% difference and for weapon strength ~5% increase, and defense from armor is also about ~5% increase.

What cause the misconception is, that a 10% increase in the piece stat does not equate in 10% increase of overall stats and even more, does not equate to 10% increase in DPS. It is similarly misunderstood for effective health. So here is a spreadsheet I made a while ago showing the comparison in EP (which often scale to direct DPS since it’s a multiplier … condi damage aside, I haven’t calculated it). I don’t claim it to be 100% accurate because traits and stuffs are not taken into account. It’s just a general comparison

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eNgeDoVO9aIqqqYHYTC_IjV0H3eOm7ZL1WNour02cE0/edit#gid=340962016

If you read it, you can see several points that I’ll note here:

1. The infusion difference compare no a non infused character is about 1.98% (Those 3000+ powerful blood yo)

2. The difference between ascended+trinket+weapon to full ascended non infused is about 1.43%. So yes the 400g+ armor set gives you 1.45% increase in dps compare to one without.

3. If you have full ascended and DON’T use food, you’re 2.91% behind one using food. This is where it’s interesting. Compare this to the nonascended armor and use food, you’re actually worse off.

4. The ascended weapon contribute to 5% difference so it’s noted on the 5th column of a 8.71% dps loss if you don’t have an ascended weapon.

5. Other columns are other stats, soldier, valk, celes, etc.

I hope you enjoy the info.

So, what’s the conclusion? I don’t think the 1.43% dps loss is something to fret about. If you really worry, then you should just concentrate on getting ascended trinket (which actually are cheaper than exotic) and the ascended weapons.

I’d like to cover that up with my own calculations:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yC8CmWopA2eJ0nbZMrxxHWO4e2YJ0Osq6fQM3Cztjv4/edit?usp=sharing

I calculated the relative increase in stats for Defense/Toughness/Vitality, because it was said that the raids will incentivise us to build defensive stats. As an additionial thing I defined a value I called Survivability as the number of hits you are able to sustain while continously being hit with constant damage (not taking into account any regeneration/heals/condition damage). Turns out it’s simply Armor * Health.
Survivability increases by 4-7% depending on class and stat combination.

I also did some calculations for average relative damage increase for full zerker and full assassin’s. One reddit thread said the avg damage increase for zerker is ~12%, but I calculated a value of 7-8% using the simple bernoulli distribution.

Hope that this is helpful.

It was quite literally about personal gear progression being meaningful, not a filler for content.

Never confuse PR speak for literal fact. There is always a little massaging in the messaging.

Ohoni.6057:

It was quite literally about personal gear progression being meaningful, not a filler for content.

Never confuse PR speak for literal fact. There is always a little massaging in the messaging.

Never confuse subjective interpretation of events for literal fact either.

Skywing.4836:

I want to come in and give some input concerning the difference between exotic and ascended. As Colin has come out and corrected that Ascended rarity is recommended, but not required.

Now, a lot of misinformation have been floating around concerning the increase in stats of ascended equipment in comparison to exotic. 5%, 10% ? I would like give an approximate difference here.

First of all, I don’t deny that looking at the pieces of armor or weapons or accessories pieces alone, the stat increase of the piece itself is yes around 5-10% difference and for weapon strength ~5% increase, and defense from armor is also about ~5% increase.

What cause the misconception is, that a 10% increase in the piece stat does not equate in 10% increase of overall stats and even more, does not equate to 10% increase in DPS. It is similarly misunderstood for effective health. So here is a spreadsheet I made a while ago showing the comparison in EP (which often scale to direct DPS since it’s a multiplier … condi damage aside, I haven’t calculated it). I don’t claim it to be 100% accurate because traits and stuffs are not taken into account. It’s just a general comparison

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eNgeDoVO9aIqqqYHYTC_IjV0H3eOm7ZL1WNour02cE0/edit#gid=340962016

If you read it, you can see several points that I’ll note here:

1. The infusion difference compare no a non infused character is about 1.98% (Those 3000+ powerful blood yo)

2. The difference between ascended+trinket+weapon to full ascended non infused is about 1.43%. So yes the 400g+ armor set gives you 1.45% increase in dps compare to one without.

3. If you have full ascended and DON’T use food, you’re 2.91% behind one using food. This is where it’s interesting. Compare this to the nonascended armor and use food, you’re actually worse off.

4. The ascended weapon contribute to 5% difference so it’s noted on the 5th column of a 8.71% dps loss if you don’t have an ascended weapon.

5. Other columns are other stats, soldier, valk, celes, etc.

I hope you enjoy the info.

So, what’s the conclusion? I don’t think the 1.43% dps loss is something to fret about. If you really worry, then you should just concentrate on getting ascended trinket (which actually are cheaper than exotic) and the ascended weapons.

Thanks for the math.

Also some runes give a 20% damage boost compared to others.
1 mistake can wipe out 80% of your hp or more
1 miss can lower your dps by 10%
1 stack of might is more then 1% dps
Class disparity in stats can reach up to 50%
Class unbalance can reach up to 20% in dps alone
Build diparity is even bigger then class disparity. Some builds are simply wrong by math.
Some classes give unique boons (like banners/spirits) that stack on top of regular boons. Again, more disparity and actually bigger then ascended vs exotic. And we already know that “no particular class is required, no wait time”.

Yet Red Guardian only takes condi damage and some classes have 50% less condi damage compared to others.

So saying that ascended is required while ignoring everything else doesn’t really make sense.

This game is skill based. Whoever says that ascended+exo is not enough and you need full ascended doesn’t have a very big understanding of the game. I have a full ascended/legendary set, and I don’t really feel much difference compare to my other exotic set with a different build.

Never confuse subjective interpretation of events for literal fact either.

Of course. Everything needs to be viewed skeptically and critically.

Asc gear is not a problem itself. Problem is an question “What stats?”. Grinding for multiple sets is a ridiculous idea.
But i think what for certain situations inside the raid(hello condition vulnerable guradian) exo gear is enought. But it will not stop ppl to create elitists lfg with descr like “gearcheck 3 asc full sets with strenght runes”.

Lachanche.6859:

Draknar.5748:

Wow some serious knee-jerk here. At no point did anyone say it was required.

the dev litterally just said thaton twitter. before retconning it on reddit.

No, I read the twitter :

@blacklionchest Earlier wing bosses can prob be killed by top tier players in mix of asc/ex. Last boss should be full asc.

Doesn’t say it’s needed.

Earlier wing bosses -> “mix of asc/ex” (only “top tier players”)
Last boss -> “should be full asc” -> implying can’t be mix of asc/ex (unless you’re more “top tier” then “top tier players”) -> implying everyone will need full ascended

However I don’t think she retconned on reddit, I think she just explained better what she meant. The initial tweet must have been a comunication mistake.

Obtena.7952:

Lachanche.6859:

Draknar.5748:

Wow some serious knee-jerk here. At no point did anyone say it was required.

the dev litterally just said thaton twitter. before retconning it on reddit.

No, I read the twitter :

@blacklionchest Earlier wing bosses can prob be killed by top tier players in mix of asc/ex. Last boss should be full asc.

Doesn’t say it’s needed.

Yep, but it does say that the dev in question thinks that not having full ascended on earlier bosses makes the fights uncertain for top tier players (hint, most of the raiders will not be top tier, even if they consider themselves skilled). It also strongly suggests, that the dev thinks that not having full ascended on the last boss will likely end up in failure. Even if you are top tier.

Astralporing.1957:

Obtena.7952:

Lachanche.6859:

Draknar.5748:

Wow some serious knee-jerk here. At no point did anyone say it was required.

the dev litterally just said thaton twitter. before retconning it on reddit.

No, I read the twitter :

@blacklionchest Earlier wing bosses can prob be killed by top tier players in mix of asc/ex. Last boss should be full asc.

Doesn’t say it’s needed.

Yep, but it does say that the dev in question thinks that not having full ascended on earlier bosses makes the fights uncertain for top tier players (hint, most of the raiders will not be top tier, even if they consider themselves skilled). It also strongly suggests, that the dev thinks that not having full ascended on the last boss will likely end up in failure. Even if you are top tier.

Which can be countered by past instances of devs thinking the community wouldn’t be able to topple challenging content for months (TT, Tequatl). They have been wrong before, they have underestimated the playerbase quite a few times, how is this any different?

They can project that full ascended should be the requirement for the final boss, but it won’t be. Players will get better, even marginally every single day the content is done and repeated.

When the content can get done in full exotics, players won’t have any issues bringing the bare minimum provided they have the mechanics of each encounter done right.

Astralporing.1957:

Obtena.7952:

Lachanche.6859:

Draknar.5748:

Wow some serious knee-jerk here. At no point did anyone say it was required.

the dev litterally just said thaton twitter. before retconning it on reddit.

No, I read the twitter :

@blacklionchest Earlier wing bosses can prob be killed by top tier players in mix of asc/ex. Last boss should be full asc.

Doesn’t say it’s needed.

Yep, but it does say that the dev in question thinks that not having full ascended on earlier bosses makes the fights uncertain for top tier players (hint, most of the raiders will not be top tier, even if they consider themselves skilled). It also strongly suggests, that the dev thinks that not having full ascended on the last boss will likely end up in failure. Even if you are top tier.

There have been plenty of posts showing how this opinion doesn’t make sense currently.

We’re really left with a small number of options.
1) Infusions (doesn’t seem to be true)
2) Blatant PR-speak not reflecting the game
3) Dev was just talking out their kitten and was wrong (could link to #2, the retraction implies this is true)
4) Some kind of a large revision to ascended gear is coming.

3 seems by far the most likely case at this point, even with how unlikely it should be that a designer is so wrong about the design.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Well I’m out, Colin straight up lied to us regarding benchmarks having to be met in order to raid, ascended gear was supposed to be optional, only providing us with an expensive slowly gated way to acquire ascended gear, and still leaving enough of a disparity between respective classes DPS that there will be a Meta group that excludes others.

I will give ANet one week to reconsider before I out in a request for a refund, money talks every one remember that.

Unless your goal is to finish up the raid as fast as possible, I don’t think you’ll have that much trouble with raids even without ascended armor.

Windsagio.1340:

Astralporing.1957:

Obtena.7952:

Lachanche.6859:

Draknar.5748:

Wow some serious knee-jerk here. At no point did anyone say it was required.

the dev litterally just said thaton twitter. before retconning it on reddit.

No, I read the twitter :

@blacklionchest Earlier wing bosses can prob be killed by top tier players in mix of asc/ex. Last boss should be full asc.

Doesn’t say it’s needed.

Yep, but it does say that the dev in question thinks that not having full ascended on earlier bosses makes the fights uncertain for top tier players (hint, most of the raiders will not be top tier, even if they consider themselves skilled). It also strongly suggests, that the dev thinks that not having full ascended on the last boss will likely end up in failure. Even if you are top tier.

There have been plenty of posts showing how this opinion doesn’t make sense currently.

We’re really left with a small number of options.
1) Infusions (doesn’t seem to be true)
2) Blatant PR-speak not reflecting the game
3) Dev was just talking out their kitten and was wrong (could link to #2, the retraction implies this is true)
4) Some kind of a large revision to ascended gear is coming.

3 seems by far the most likely case at this point, even with how unlikely it should be that a designer is so wrong about the design.

from what i heard the raids have pulsing unavoidable aoe dmg. What this means is math starts to come into the equation.
Also, they do expect you to have certain abilities/roles or fail.
so they could easily tune unavoidable dmg such that you need
X amount of healing constant protection and thus have X amount of time to beat the raid.
while highly coordinated and skilled/specific teams can get around things, like people who beat level 80 fractals with necros, search and rescue, etc, for the large majoirity, it basically required to get agony resist.

Basically unavoidable dmg and enrage timers changes the past equation of gw2.
will they make it that tight? who knows, but its definately possible now that they have unavoidable arena size aoe dmg as a “mechanic”

There’s been a lot of math on the gains of ascended gear vs the gains of class/play.

If they actually tune it so tightly that that 1.98% extra you get from ascended armor (as vs weapons and trinkets) is necessary for top players, it’s going to be utterly inaccessible to everyone else, and then the mode will fail.

I don’t want it to fail, I don’t think they want it to fail, They can’t tune the cnounter that tightly — if it’s possible to do so at all, given the ‘active combat’ element in GW2

To put it another way, if they’re tuning to ‘full ascended’ they’[re also tuning to fixed teams that vary for each encounter (based on the gimmick) and to probably something like a .0001% completion rate for the content on top of that.

I’d imagine that kind of thing would please some people, but can you imagine them actually doing it?

PopeUrban.2578:

It was quite literally about personal gear progression being meaningful, not a filler for content.

That’s not all it was. It was the death knell for pure cosmetic progression. I remember the complaints from shortly after launch. For every complaint about no stat progression there were a dozen saying that the player had gotten their endgame look already and was looking for something to do.

Pure cosmetic progression would have offered many more cosmetic options, and multiple appearance slots so that players could seamlessly switch looks. This was not part of the design. I agree that Ascended was put in as a more lengthy progression goal, but Asc. was a much easier and cheaper way to offer such a goal than reworking (or even expanding) the cosmetic progression endgame, which was botched going into the game. ANet thought that the Legendary alone would keep people busy and happy being busy as the cosmetic endgame, but that didn’t work, and that’s why Asc. was put in.

Windsagio.1340:

There’s been a lot of math on the gains of ascended gear vs the gains of class/play.

If they actually tune it so tightly that that 1.98% extra you get from ascended armor (as vs weapons and trinkets) is necessary for top players, it’s going to be utterly inaccessible to everyone else, and then the mode will fail.

I don’t want it to fail, I don’t think they want it to fail, They can’t tune the cnounter that tightly — if it’s possible to do so at all, given the ‘active combat’ element in GW2

Of course not. The entire thing has been blown out of proportion. There’s vid of someone SOLO all 3 guardians:

What one should take out of this is a truth, a painful truth: the devs are NOT good at the game. They are not good enough to even be compared to the top elite players like Sesshi, Goku, Abe and a handful more of the top in elite speed clear dungeons like SC, rT, qT, DnT, NA, LOD, to name a few.

Their skill level is probably above average. And to an average players, Ascended weapons+Trinkets are efficient enough. And no ascended armor being required is absolute crap.

Well I wouldn’t go that far, one dev shot their mouth off.

Players always think they know more than the devs, and it’s almost never actually true.

Windsagio.1340:

Well I wouldn’t go that far, one dev shot their mouth off.

Players always think they know more than the devs, and it’s almost never actually true.

Remember on the panels they said the raids are hard? Delivery: solo-able content raid. Sure they have insider information and data, but the actual execution of techniques? No way.

Of course they can scale the content up so hard that the top will fail consistently but then they themselves and the rest of 99.9999% of the player base wouldn’t be able to do it either.

Here’s a real life story: we had a discussion in a math class (graduate level) and one of the student stood up and told the professor: “I dare you to fail me, fairly”, the teacher couldn’t do it. Why? Because he would have to fail everyone in the class. In fact, in order to do he’d need to give exam problem so hard that each question would be an unsolved problem which he himself wouldn’t be able to do it in order to fail us.

Skywing.4836:

Windsagio.1340:

Well I wouldn’t go that far, one dev shot their mouth off.

Players always think they know more than the devs, and it’s almost never actually true.

Remember on the panels they said the raids are hard? Delivery: solo-able content raid. Sure they have insider information and data, but the actual execution of techniques? No way.

Do you remember my posts (won’t be upset if you dont) back then where I kept talking about how Raids weren’t actually going to be hard?

The content was never ever going to be designed for those ‘competitive’ guilds, it would be product suicide.

Those folks extrapolated what they wanted from the statements and Anet let them. Kitten like this ‘ascended required’ thing only fed the illusion (which may have been the intent, I still think it was a mistake though), but it’s always been an illusion, and a transparent one for that.

The raids are going to be extremely hard for day-to-day guilds, but completable. They don’t care to design for ‘top’ guilds because it excludes most of the players..

to bring it back to the thread topic, that’s why that tweet was so obviously transparently false. There’s simply no way they’d sabotage their product by designing it that tightly.

Edit: Saw your edit, but I’ve gotta leave, bug ya later! :p

Everyone who complains about difficult Raids , just a wow from me. I do think that the recommendation of Ascendet Gear says just something about , how hard the Raid will be and that is AMAZING. I really dont get it, how people can cry for EASY PVE CONTENT! How the kitten is das possible??? A Game lives from its challenges and competetive play in PvP or Pve… getting everything stucked into my kitten is the worst thing ever ever ever ever ever. Great Job Anet on having balls!!!! TANK YOU

Amaya.1483:

Everyone who complains about difficult Raids , just a wow from me. I do think that the recommendation of Ascendet Gear says just something about , how hard the Raid will be and that is AMAZING. I really dont get it, how people can cry for EASY PVE CONTENT! How the kitten is das possible??? A Game lives from its challenges and competetive play in PvP or Pve… getting everything stucked into my kitten is the worst thing ever ever ever ever ever. Great Job Anet on having balls!!!! TANK YOU

You don’t understand the content of the complaint (well presuming it’s not a troll). Even pro-difficulty people were complaining about the need to potentially gear up multiple characters into full ascended, it’s a daunting task.

Beyond that I think we’ve pretty conclusively proven that that kind of tuning isn’t realistically possible anyways.

PopeUrban.2578:

If I remeber correctly, the fact that shortly after launch that you and all of us had several top tier sets for every conceivable situation was why they added ascended in the first place though, right?

Like, Colin basically said “we want top tier stats to be a more meaningful and long term achievement.”

Colin also said that they expected us to get BiS more quickly than actually occurred. We geared up to BiS more slowly than they intended, “by level 80,” not, “a few days or weeks after reaching level 80.”

PopeUrban.2578:

Now, I agree that the time gates built in to ascended crafting combined with making it all account bound was a bad idea.

We know that the economy is crafting centric, but given the investment required to go from 400-500 I don’t think it would have hurt much to simply let people craft and sell ascended gear to people.

I somewhat agree with you there. Even though crafting takes literally zero effort and is not challenging in any way, it seems arbitrary to require every player to level it just to maintain the economic status quo in a resource based economy.

I mean, the crafted pieces all have the same skin (with different colors) They’re not particularly rare, just expensive to make (which is fine)

I fail to see the difference in grind between trading currency to another player (with an AH fee tacked on) or gathering all the doodads to craft a piece.

I get having to earn prestige skins through special effort, and maybe there should be some kind of special untradable skin like the backpacks for people that craft their own stuff, but I kind of agree with you. Why can’t I just sell you some ascended gear and make a profit? Seems like a win/win. Crafters have a reason to learn even more ascended recipies, and a motivation to keep crafting. Non-crafters don’t have to level it. Keep the time gates in place to stimulate trade and still give incentive to level crafting.

Leave the infusion slots/infusions the way they are now, as either 100 artificer or dumping stuff in the MF are easy to do, and the amount of time you have to spend in a menu doing it is almost nonexistant compared to the time spent gathering the stuff to make them. That way players would still have to do some personal work to get that last little stat bump but wouldn’t have to level 2+ toons worth of crafting to 500?

I agree completely. Make the investment in crafting worth more to those inclined to craft while allowing others to skip this non-play portion of the game by giving crafters their money.

Skywing.4836:

Of course they can scale the content up so hard that the top will fail consistently but then they themselves and the rest of 99.9999% of the player base wouldn’t be able to do it either.

Here’s a real life story: we had a discussion in a math class (graduate level) and one of the student stood up and told the professor: “I dare you to fail me, fairly”, the teacher couldn’t do it. Why? Because he would have to fail everyone in the class. In fact, in order to do he’d need to give exam problem so hard that each question would be an unsolved problem which he himself wouldn’t be able to do it in order to fail us.

(as promised)

So I guess we agree, they’re not gonna do that for the reasons you’re implying ><

((looks at dungeons))

((looks at open-world farming festivals- er, I mean “events”))

The Devs for this game don’t have the slightest idea what “top tier” players are capable of. Let them tune it for “all ascended” gear… If the first raid boss hasn’t been reduced to a roflstomp within 3 months that people are doing in all yellows just because they’re bored I will be STUNNED.

Windsagio.1340:

Skywing.4836:

Of course they can scale the content up so hard that the top will fail consistently but then they themselves and the rest of 99.9999% of the player base wouldn’t be able to do it either.

Here’s a real life story: we had a discussion in a math class (graduate level) and one of the student stood up and told the professor: “I dare you to fail me, fairly”, the teacher couldn’t do it. Why? Because he would have to fail everyone in the class. In fact, in order to do he’d need to give exam problem so hard that each question would be an unsolved problem which he himself wouldn’t be able to do it in order to fail us.

(as promised)

So I guess we agree, they’re not gonna do that for the reasons you’re implying ><

Yup

Ayrilana.1396:

latinkuro.7304:

Nike.2631:

They’re increasing the spread between Exotic and Ascended stats to 10% with HoT. Anyone who thought “Challenging Content” meant it would be designed so you can do it comfortably while missing the top 10% of available effectiveness was fooling themselves.

didn’t they retract from this increase after the lash out from the “casual” community ?

It was never planned.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Ascended-Gear-Anet-please-fix-this/first#post5173842

You will notice, if you read it again, that he never actually says it was never planned, just that they hadn’t released the “official” patch notes, and that it was staying at 5%.

They could have planned to go to 10% and leaked the early patch notes as a way of testing the waters and everything he said would still be factual.