Ascended or go home...
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Since HoT mobs are stronger some power creep is justified.
Since HoT mobs are stronger some power creep is justified.
I would disagree. The mobs are stronger but exo is more than enough. For example, I made a rev got him to 80 with tomes barley had a idea how to play him, took him into HoT with full exo armor no runes and beat the story with no problems.
Knowing which mob to target, when to dodge and overall skill>ascended gear.
You can beat Vale Guardian with exotic, but you’ll have no room for a mess up. The others… Not so much.
Arya- Zero Quality [zQ]-Guild Wars
Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but you abuse the privilege.
Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but you abuse the privilege.
Since HoT mobs are stronger some power creep is justified.
Power creep is never a good design. Never. That invalidate older content because of a cheap way to introduce more stuff in a expansion.
That said, Ascended are in the game almost since day one. 2 years since ascended armor and weapons are in the game. That’s not a power creep anymore, it was 2-3 years ago.
Specialization Update and Elite specialization on the other end are recent power creep.
Thaddeauz [xQCx]- QC GUILD
You can beat Vale Guardian with exotic, but you’ll have no room for a mess up. The others… Not so much.
People kill the Vale Guardian with 2-4min left on the timer. So you have a lot of room for exotic armor over ascended armor. For the other two, we’ll see what people are able to do.
Thaddeauz [xQCx]- QC GUILD
Except newer ascended combinations such as viper are much better than older combinations like sinister. Which is still a creep.
Except newer ascended combinations such as viper are much better than older combinations like sinister. Which is still a creep.
I had a engi in my party solo the red guard because he was in full asc viper. Thats min of 40K ticks on his burns…Thats some serious power creep.
Except newer ascended combinations such as viper are much better than older combinations like sinister. Which is still a creep.
I had a engi in my party solo the red guard because he was in full asc viper. Thats min of 40K ticks on his burns…Thats some serious power creep.
40K Ticks on burn? are you sure it was not the sum of all damage done so far updating on Ticks? it has happened to me as I do the skill 1 with air scepter while on ele ….
Suddenly in the Forums Everyone is now a Game designer!
I have never met someone that tries to push the 100% out of their character and refuse to craft the best gear available.
I always assume that people who refuse to craft ascended don’t really know how to min/max (and so far i stand confirmed in every encounter i had).
In general , you shouldn’t be raiding if you are refusing to play your best.
The best gear shouldnt have existed in the first place. It was only added because of people that complained about nothing to do.
No one complained in GW1 when you could buy from the NPC in the city the best gear in the game statwise. And it basically cost the equivalent of 5g.
Except newer ascended combinations such as viper are much better than older combinations like sinister. Which is still a creep.
I had a engi in my party solo the red guard because he was in full asc viper. Thats min of 40K ticks on his burns…Thats some serious power creep.
40K Ticks on burn? are you sure it was not the sum of all damage done so far updating on Ticks? it has happened to me as I do the skill 1 with air scepter while on ele ….
He solo’d the red guard. He was doing 40k ticks for fun.
I have never met someone that tries to push the 100% out of their character and refuse to craft the best gear available.
I always assume that people who refuse to craft ascended don’t really know how to min/max (and so far i stand confirmed in every encounter i had).
In general , you shouldn’t be raiding if you are refusing to play your best.
Playing your best has nothing to do with ascended gear. Its trying to rotate your skills for the best possible dps output at the same time being aware of your surroundings while avoiding all unnecessary dmg.
i have full ascedend, but dont like overzealous game modes, so im avoiding raids til someday i see on LFG something like “all welcome”.
Since HoT mobs are stronger some power creep is justified.
Power creep is never a good design. Never. That invalidate older content because of a cheap way to introduce more stuff in a expansion.
That said, Ascended are in the game almost since day one. 2 years since ascended armor and weapons are in the game. That’s not a power creep anymore, it was 2-3 years ago.
Specialization Update and Elite specialization on the other end are recent power creep.
I wouldn’t call older content invalidated since you still obtain the same rewards from it and if you gain the power creep then you’ve earned your overpowering rights by defeating tougher stuff to obtain those stats. Raids are supposed to be tough, so it’s good to have elite specs and new stat kombas to handle them better. Where powercreep really matters is PvP but that should be balanced separately anyway.
Another benefit to powercreep is mobs in base Tyria weren’t designed with stats like marauder or elite specs in mind and assumes you’re wearing greens (except Southsun and the deserts, those assume you’re at least in exotics) so your survivability and damage is better and could thus finish fights faster, meaning less time overall between nodes.
Shame on ArenaNet, your “Average Joe” payed for the game as well.
Jumping puzzles, love them or hate them, I hate them. Thread killer.
Except newer ascended combinations such as viper are much better than older combinations like sinister. Which is still a creep.
I had a engi in my party solo the red guard because he was in full asc viper. Thats min of 40K ticks on his burns…Thats some serious power creep.
40K Ticks on burn? are you sure it was not the sum of all damage done so far updating on Ticks? it has happened to me as I do the skill 1 with air scepter while on ele ….
He solo’d the red guard. He was doing 40k ticks for fun.
If he had time to solo the red boss you guys were going super super slow.
Please take a picture of this 40k dmg burn tick as well, I play viper engi in BIS gear and I can tell you it never gets to 40k even if you hit BT/FB/IP/IA/Napalm at the same time. If you add all those together you can get a max of 20 stacks of burning (maybe).
Each stack would have to hit for 2000/tick to get 40,000.
If you are going to exaggerate to prove a point that is already untrue at least make it believable.
Except newer ascended combinations such as viper are much better than older combinations like sinister. Which is still a creep.
I had a engi in my party solo the red guard because he was in full asc viper. Thats min of 40K ticks on his burns…Thats some serious power creep.
40K Ticks on burn? are you sure it was not the sum of all damage done so far updating on Ticks? it has happened to me as I do the skill 1 with air scepter while on ele ….
He solo’d the red guard. He was doing 40k ticks for fun.
If he had time to solo the red boss you guys were going super super slow.
Please take a picture of this 40k dmg burn tick as well, I play viper engi in BIS gear and I can tell you it never gets to 40k even if you hit BT/FB/IP/IA/Napalm at the same time. If you add all those together you can get a max of 20 stacks of burning (maybe).
Each stack would have to hit for 2000/tick to get 40,000.
If you are going to exaggerate to prove a point that is already untrue at least make it believable.
We beat the boss with over 1min left. I didnt personally see the ticks but he solo’d red thats enough to prove my point. Either way you can believe what you want I couldnt care less.
Except newer ascended combinations such as viper are much better than older combinations like sinister. Which is still a creep.
I had a engi in my party solo the red guard because he was in full asc viper. Thats min of 40K ticks on his burns…Thats some serious power creep.
Pic or it didn’t happen. 40k burns? With what? I have full ascended vipers and I’m not seeing anything close to 40k ticks.
www.AlchemyIncorporated.net
Sorrows Furnace
Sorrows Furnace
Except newer ascended combinations such as viper are much better than older combinations like sinister. Which is still a creep.
I had a engi in my party solo the red guard because he was in full asc viper. Thats min of 40K ticks on his burns…Thats some serious power creep.
40K Ticks on burn? are you sure it was not the sum of all damage done so far updating on Ticks? it has happened to me as I do the skill 1 with air scepter while on ele ….
He solo’d the red guard. He was doing 40k ticks for fun.
If he had time to solo the red boss you guys were going super super slow.
Please take a picture of this 40k dmg burn tick as well, I play viper engi in BIS gear and I can tell you it never gets to 40k even if you hit BT/FB/IP/IA/Napalm at the same time. If you add all those together you can get a max of 20 stacks of burning (maybe).
Each stack would have to hit for 2000/tick to get 40,000.
If you are going to exaggerate to prove a point that is already untrue at least make it believable.
We beat the boss with over 1min left. I didnt personally see the ticks but he solo’d red thats enough to prove my point. Either way you can believe what you want I couldnt care less.
Not necessarily, soloing the small bosses in the beginning is no prowess, I have seen this kind of error before in the displayed damage (as mentioned in the ele air scepter) … probably is ticking for 4K …after 10 ticks it would show 40K, the eleventh 44K and so on …
Suddenly in the Forums Everyone is now a Game designer!
Where do you get vipers trinkets from? The raid itself?
Jade Quarry [SoX]
Miranda Zero – Ele / Twitch Zero – Mes / Chargrin Soulboom – Engi
Aliera Zero – Guardian / Reaver Zero – Necro
Miranda Zero – Ele / Twitch Zero – Mes / Chargrin Soulboom – Engi
Aliera Zero – Guardian / Reaver Zero – Necro
As much as it’s something you work towards anyway, what amazes me is people who think that ascended armour makes/made a difference. On a zerker set, you’re getting maybe a “massive” 52 extra stat points, plus another 60 armour. If you seriously go into a group and nod in satisfaction that everyone must be using ascended armour because everything is going much more smoothly than other groups, then you need to get real. Individual skill and knowing your optimal rotations is hugely more important. There are a whole list of considerations, starting with using good foods, sigils, runes, etc. that can individually matter several times more than whether someone’s using ascended or exotic armour.
That said, in the condi stakes, you do see a noticeable power creep between Sinister and Viper. For a full armour set (using ascended as the example), you’re talking about:
Sinister
Primary 1: 439
Secondary 1: 315
Secondary 2: 315
Total: 1069
Viper
Primary 1: 376
Primary 2: 376
Secondary 1: 207
Secondary 2: 207
Total: 1166
On a pure stat-for-stat basis, you’re actually holding your group back significantly more by running Sinister rather than Viper than you would be running exotic armour rather than ascended (obviously even with the condi duration cap figured in).
Sea of Sorrows
I have never met someone that tries to push the 100% out of their character and refuse to craft the best gear available.
I always assume that people who refuse to craft ascended don’t really know how to min/max (and so far i stand confirmed in every encounter i had).
In general , you shouldn’t be raiding if you are refusing to play your best.
In other games, raiding is how you got that gear. You go to the raid to get that thing, not to already have it so can show up looking on point and sparkly.
Kash
NSP
NSP
Shame on ArenaNet, your “Average Joe” payed for the game as well.
Then the average Joe should learn to properly become raid ready. When people pay to enter a tournament in something you aren’t owed winning but should earn it by outplaying everyone else. Likewise for raiding you should find a team, coordinate, go over tactics on the drawing board, research raiding footage to see where others went wrong or what they did right, and obtain the proper gear for their strategic and tactical roles.
In other games, raiding is how you got that gear. You go to the raid to get that thing, not to already have it so can show up looking on point and sparkly.
I know you’re replying to the other person but I want to mention that if you beat VG you unlock the option of buying ascended armor, approximately 1 piece per 2 weeks.
On a zerker set, you’re getting maybe a “massive” 52 extra stat points, plus another 60 armour. If you seriously go into a group and nod in satisfaction that everyone must be using ascended armour because everything is going much more smoothly than other groups, then you need to get real. Individual skill and knowing your optimal rotations is hugely more important. There are a whole list of considerations, starting with using good foods, sigils, runes, etc. that can individually matter several times more than whether someone’s using ascended or exotic armour.
Good players are more likely to have ascended armor. The correlation goes the other way around. I have found this correlation to be very noticeable.
Also someone with ascended armor is more likely to have good sigils, food.
Also the bosses are defeated with several or all people downed surprisingly often. The 1-2% of dps really matters. Big kudos to Anet for designing the fights this way btw.
If I’m going to spend the next few hours trying to beat a boss I sure as kitten want people with the best performance possible.
Since HoT mobs are stronger some power creep is justified.
I don’t think HoT mobs require better gear. I think they just require adjusting one’s play style. Exotics are more the sufficient — I have yet to die (or fail to kill) because of a lack of stats; it’s always been because I played like I was used to in core Tyria.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
On a zerker set, you’re getting maybe a “massive” 52 extra stat points, plus another 60 armour. If you seriously go into a group and nod in satisfaction that everyone must be using ascended armour because everything is going much more smoothly than other groups, then you need to get real. Individual skill and knowing your optimal rotations is hugely more important. There are a whole list of considerations, starting with using good foods, sigils, runes, etc. that can individually matter several times more than whether someone’s using ascended or exotic armour.
Good players are more likely to have ascended armor. The correlation goes the other way around. I have found this correlation to be very noticeable.
Also someone with ascended armor is more likely to have good sigils, food.
Also the bosses are defeated with several or all people downed surprisingly often. The 1-2% of dps really matters. Big kudos to Anet for designing the fights this way btw.
If I’m going to spend the next few hours trying to beat a boss I sure as kitten want people with the best performance possible.
I challenge that correlation. The only correlation there is, is that players with acsended armour had more time to gather the materials/gold, or had the resources to convert real cash to gold.
Skill to Ascended possesion has little to do with it. At most you can state that the longer exosure to the game increases the the likelyhood that a player understands the mechanics better. But that is a causation.
Additionally, the stat boost from armours alone is marginal (1-2%). The boost from weapons and trinkets is considerable(10-12%). And the aquisition of those is inversely correlated in terms of cost/time investment.
(edited by Faab.8049)
i have full ascedend, but dont like overzealous game modes, so im avoiding raids til someday i see on LFG something like “all welcome”.
well said !!!
i have full ascedend, but dont like overzealous game modes, so im avoiding raids til someday i see on LFG something like “all welcome”.
well said !!!
This is actually funny. Part of any game is getting better gear, knowing mechanics, and using strategy. GW2 has for a long time allowed us to use whatever gear we want, but raids are a different target audience. Just the other day I got Sabbetha down to about 0.2% before we wiped, and it turns out two of our players were running food that offered nothing to the raid. Had they been in decent food… well I would have a Sabbetha clear under my belt.
It takes hours for the average player to get the mechanics of raids down enough to not constantly wipe, and when they do fail as they learn 9 other people waste more time, money, food, energy, etc.
But hey, I’m not actually upset, it keeps people like you who would probably just cause my group to fail out of raids, and as rude as that sounds, that is fine with me.
Morvik Dragonslayer
FF | Nerf
FF | Nerf
Don’t need power creep to tackle more challenging pve content.
Just allow players to create 3 different skill bars and swap them out with a single button press when outside of combat.
One can already amend a skillbar to precisely counter a situation. It is just currently too cumbersome for the average player to even think about.
I’m actually fine with ascended being needed in some new content. I am also fine with most of HoT being designed for people that like to live and die by a timer. I’m even good with titles and armor that can be earned there so long as they offer no inherent gain or significant power creep.
What I am not happy with is an Xpac that offers next to nothing for the play style that the game was initially focused on after waiting a year for it! I’m currently spending most of my time in core areas due to not wanting to “wait to have fun”. And with the way RNG and the “new” revised content is set up I will most likely never see another ascended drop and I sure as kitten won’t craft one due to cost.
It’s less about the ascended gear doing anything as it is about pugs wanting some way to evaluate a pug. Basically if you’re going to take an unknown quantity, you might as well take one with best in slot gear.
Of course this has no relation to skill. I myself don’t have ascended gear because i refuse to craft anything and the drop rate is dead. I actually played a ton of fractals previously and have experience in the game. I know my rotations and how to play my class so realistically I could easily more than make up for the dps loss from ascended gear would give a worse player.
It’s a little like taking a player based on AP. it might mean they’re good, but it might not.
Bristleback can’t hit anything? Let’s fix the HP bug instead.
I’m actually fine with ascended being needed in some new content. I am also fine with most of HoT being designed for people that like to live and die by a timer. I’m even good with titles and armor that can be earned there so long as they offer no inherent gain or significant power creep.
What I am not happy with is an Xpac that offers next to nothing for the play style that the game was initially focused on after waiting a year for it! I’m currently spending most of my time in core areas due to not wanting to “wait to have fun”. And with the way RNG and the “new” revised content is set up I will most likely never see another ascended drop and I sure as kitten won’t craft one due to cost.
+ 1
I have never met someone that tries to push the 100% out of their character and refuse to craft the best gear available.
I always assume that people who refuse to craft ascended don’t really know how to min/max (and so far i stand confirmed in every encounter i had).
In general , you shouldn’t be raiding if you are refusing to play your best.
This comment isn’t based on reality, but on personal bias. A false dichotomy indeed, and I do not mean to insult you or your intelligence. Essentially, “playing your best” isn’t tied to gear as much as you think it must-not really at all for every player out there. That’s only how you see it, not how it is, or even “should be.”
Since “best gear” is also subjective-raid role, different Professions, group synergy, other whathaveyous-by this opinion you are indeed judging people by your own preferences rather than any actual skill they may or not have. Further, there are many valid reasons a “good player” that “plays at his/her best” may not necessarily have Ascended gear.
(No insulting remarks from anyone, please. Either post intelligently or just move on and ignore my post.)
I actually feel this to be more of a player problem. The general consensus is ascended armor is nice but not needed. Weapons and trinkets pretty much. I will not pretend that if you are getting a boss to 1%, having that extra little bit from armor won’t help. However at the same time it is likely that being a bit more efficient in your tactics will also achieve that for you.
I really want to get into raids. I enjoy difficult content. I am looking forward to it. Though I have already run into the requirements of having ascended gear. As a newer player the barrier to entry is MASSIVE. Some quick examples.
Weaponsmithing to 500 – 115 Gold(According to GW2Crafts.net)
So lets look at what weapons I will need. I play a guardian. To have the ability to change builds as the raid needs I need a variety. Let’s look at the whole picture! So a Hammer, Mace, Sword, GS and Shield.
Numbers as per GW2 Efficiency
Hammer – 93 gold
Mace – 93 gold
Sword – 84 gold
GS – 84 gold
Shield – 76 gold
So we are looking at around 545 gold for just two hand weapons and main hand. We also would need to level another two professions to obtain off hand weapons and a longbow for the DH specialization. If you add those in we are probably closer to 800 or more gold, the longbow costs 130 to craft alone. And that is only for ONE set, Zojja’s. Heaven forbid you need to craft a different stat set on a couple weapons, that adds to the cost as well.
I do understand that this is end game content and I haven’t been playing that long. But at the same time it feels like the content is nearly impossible to obtain. How long should it take me to obtain that much gold? I am sure there are methods that are faster than others. I am curious as to how long you think this would take through simply playing content. Not working the TP or running around chopping wood, or doing what I have found to be the most eye gougingly boring thing in the world, SW chest runs.
I can understand the argument that this content is for the players that have been around for a while and want the new hard content. I actually enjoy most of HoT. On the whole I very much enjoy the game. But at the same time, this is content I paid for. It is also I content I cannot do for a long, long time. Or I could do it tomorrow if I opened up my wallet.
Maybe I am just really bad at making money? I just find that simply playing content, it does not come fast.
Edit – Revised numbers UP. I did not account for crafting 400-500
(edited by BloodyNine.7504)
Back when ascended was introduced, I thought it was a bad move, and I still do. Introducing another tier of gear went against their design philosophies, AND set up a prime breeding ground for power creep. But ANet assured us, repeatedly, that ascended would only ever be necessary for high level fractals, and unless we were playing that content, it wasn’t needed. So some of us that didn’t need to always have BIS, and were happy with the original game design, merrily went on our ways playing in exotics.
Fast-forward to HoT. Now, our fears of power creep are a reality. Raids are tuned to ascended, and players are excluding others based on whether they have it or not. This really is to be expected, though. The highest tier of gear will always be a necessity, in players’ minds.
What bothers me the most, though, is that ANet has not put any reasonable method of ascended gear acquisition in the game. If you want ascended gear, you have to craft it, which is expensive, and time-gated. And since HoT came out, the expense is even higher than it used to be. And please — don’t respond with some illusion of ascended gear actually dropping somewhere. It might, occasionally. But if a player counts on RNG drops for it, they’ll be cold and in the ground before they ever see it.
How should it be? Play hard-mode dungeons to get ascended gear drops, so you can use them in raids. That would be “normal” clear progression. But we don’t have hard-mode dungeons — we effectively don’t have any dungeons now.
As a “semi-veteran” player, I can grumble, and go start crafting my ascended stuff (even though I was told for years that I would never need it outside of high-level fractals). But how on earth are new players supposed to ever think about raiding? Those poor sods are waaaaaay behind the curve. And most probably will burn out before they ever get there.
TL/DR: If ANet wanted ascended to be the standard gear for raiding, they should have put some reasonable, progression-based methods in the game to acquire it. But they didn’t.
(edited by Supernaut.2684)
But how on earth are new players supposed to ever think about raiding? Those poor sods are waaaaaay behind the curve. And most probably will burn out before they ever get there.
TL/DR: If ANet wanted ascended to be the standard gear for raiding, they should have put some reasonable, progression-based methods in the game to acquire it. But they didn’t.
This so so so so so much. I am one of those new players. It is downright discouraging. I have already thought about looking into a different MMO. Not because I don’t like the thought of “needing” this gear. But because, as a new player, obtaining looks like a near impossible mountain to grind.
But how on earth are new players supposed to ever think about raiding? Those poor sods are waaaaaay behind the curve. And most probably will burn out before they ever get there.
TL/DR: If ANet wanted ascended to be the standard gear for raiding, they should have put some reasonable, progression-based methods in the game to acquire it. But they didn’t.
This so so so so so much. I am one of those new players. It is downright discouraging. I have already thought about looking into a different MMO. Not because I don’t like the thought of “needing” this gear. But because, as a new player, obtaining looks like a near impossible mountain to grind.
I feel so sorry for new players. This expansion is already tough on veterans, but it must feel totally futile for the new ones when they realize the timegated grind ahead to get into endgame.
This is worse than catching up in WoW… No gear grind my lower back.
Mesmer PvE Guide
The Leveling & Open World Compendium
The Leveling & Open World Compendium
(snip) This is worse than catching up in WoW… No gear grind my lower back.
The last time I went back to WoW, it took me one week to gear up to raid, and I did it all through dungeon drops. One week, and it wasn’t all that difficult or grindy.
WoW did a lot of things wrong, but one thing they did right, IMO, was to provide a clear and reasonable path for gear progression.
WoW did a lot of things wrong, but one thing they did right, IMO, was to provide a clear and reasonable path for gear progression.
Yup, the bottom line is that if the gear is required for content then you should be able to get it through content. I don’t want it given to me for free. If I need ascended armor for doing higher level fractals, then doing lower level ones should be able to eventually gear me up. That was I can work my way up.
If ascended weapons are needed for raids then high level dungeons, and or other high end content should drop those as well. You can gear yourself up through playing content to work to harder content. Grinding/buying gold and crafting the armor/weapons should be a shortcut. Not the only way to get there.
None of that would matter at all if the content didn’t require those items. But it does.
Since HoT mobs are stronger some power creep is justified.
Sorry no. once you work out how the mobs behave HoT is quite easy. I found HoT hard on my first play through, I was a Warrior in ascended Knights armor, with Ascended Zerker weapons and trinkets, my Guardian was a little easier, Burn guard with zerker armor, and a mix of zerker and Soilders trinkets, all exotic gear. My third time thought with my full zerker ranger in full exotic, bar her longbow that is ascended and HoT is easy mode.
From my experience of hot ranged players have an easier time in open world and story mode than melee classes.
WoW did a lot of things wrong, but one thing they did right, IMO, was to provide a clear and reasonable path for gear progression.
Yup, the bottom line is that if the gear is required for content then you should be able to get it through content. I don’t want it given to me for free. If I need ascended armor for doing higher level fractals, then doing lower level ones should be able to eventually gear me up. That was I can work my way up.
If ascended weapons are needed for raids then high level dungeons, and or other high end content should drop those as well. You can gear yourself up through playing content to work to harder content. Grinding/buying gold and crafting the armor/weapons should be a shortcut. Not the only way to get there.
None of that would matter at all if the content didn’t require those items. But it does.
you can get them Via drops, granted they are few and far between. but they do drops.
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Ascended or go home?
Faint scent of power creep?
Hmm, I hear the vague tolling of an ‘I told you so’ in the distance….
Don’t look at me like that. Whatever you’ve heard, it’s probably not true.
you can get them Via drops, granted they are few and far between. but they do drops.
I stated earlier. I am a newer player. So this is an honest question, not a rhetorical one meant to prove a point. Do you think that you can reliably gear up a character through drops in lower to mid level fractals and dungeons?
I have been playing them consistently for a couple months now with not one drop. Maybe I have bad luck? Maybe they are dropping for party mates and not me? I am working on ascended armor to move up into higher fractals but at this point I have 10 AR and the cost is crazy. Crafting it is about 3-4 weeks of play time per piece at the rate I am able to play. This doesn’t even address the required weapons for raids.
you can get them Via drops, granted they are few and far between. but they do drops.
Yes, they technically do drop. But only at a ridiculously low rate; one should never count on drops for ascended gear. And that’s a problem.
Ascended or go home?
Faint scent of power creep?Hmm, I hear the vague tolling of an ‘I told you so’ in the distance….
I hear it too — and the tolling is hardly “vague.” It’s loud and clear. And the scent of power creep? It stinks.
This thread shocks me. There’s a lot of misinformation.
First of all, the timers are not hard enrage timers. You can still beat the boss after the timer has ended, it just gives the boss a buff and makes it substantially harder to sustain his attacks.
Secondly, I’ve consistently participated in raids in full exotic myself and have no inclination to create ascended gear for all of my characters. Ascended trinkets are cheap and worth it, and otherwise there are so many more things you could do to improve your success rate in raids without ever looking at your gear rarity. Optimizing DPS rotations, for instance, alongside really effective minimal-defense builds do much more for the time than gear rarity. I think there’s a lot of unfounded vitriol in this thread where the assumption is made that ascended is necessary when it simply is not.
Additionally, like with all content in this game (dungeons / fractals before raids), you’re free to make your own PUB group if that’s what you want to do. Otherwise, your guilds should ideally take you along regardless (and if not, maybe find a different guild). The biggest contributors to raid success are dedication and perseverance and optimization. You need to be willing to rethink your strategies on a dime after every failure to see where you can do better next time, and ultimately you need a certain threshold of mechanical skill or no measure of ascended gear can save you.
Lastly, any “power creep” classes are experiencing has come more from elite specializations and new gear stat combinations. None of it originated in ascended gear. Seriously, guys, the top guilds are clearing all of the bosses with minutes left before the timers run out. The ~2% gain from ascended armor and the ~8% gain from ascended weapons is nowhere near enough to lose you 1-2 minutes on the clock even if everyone is suffering that same loss. It’s 90% about the mechanical skill and awareness. You can train yourself and your friends to be better, and you can overcome the content.
[VZ] Valor Zeal – Stormbluff Isle – Looking for steady, casual-friendly NA raiders!
So lets look at what weapons I will need. I play a guardian. To have the ability to change builds as the raid needs I need a variety. Let’s look at the whole picture! So a Hammer, Mace, Sword, GS and Shield.
Numbers as per GW2 Efficiency
Hammer – 93 gold
Mace – 93 gold
Sword – 84 gold
GS – 84 gold
Shield – 76 gold
I also play a Guardian and I’m a returning player (played at launch, came back a month or two ago). I feel like it’s a bit easier than you think to get started. First, focus on your Zerker set, since most players will be ‘DPS’ in a raid. That’s going to be GS and Longbow in the current meta.
Since you are leveling Weaponsmithing first (smart idea for Guardian), you should look into getting Ydalir for your Longbow via the specialization collection (Berserker’s is available on it). It requires a lot of mastery experience, but you’ll be earning that participating in meta events, doing adventures and having fun, so it’ll go faster than you think.
Now those prices above assume you’re buying everything off the Auction House (and using your own daily Deldrimor/Spiritwood cooldowns). Part of the problem right now is that wood prices have spiked since the start of the expansion (example: http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/19722). If you just take a little while each day and gather your own wood, you’ll save up to 30g on that 83g Greatsword (which is the right weapon to start with). There’s a great little spot for Elder Wood west of Pagga’s Waypoint ([&BKYCAAA=]).
With Longbow/Greatsword set, you’re probably ready to start as a damage dealer. The other weapons aren’t part of the main damage build. Hammer/Mace/Shield are used for tanking and support builds. Sword is for condi, and you’re better off getting Engi or Necro for that. Scepter is good, but now you need to level Artificer as well (which is actually pretty cheap due to potions) and possibly Huntsman (not so cheap, cause of wood) for Torch as OH. Staff is almost never used in PvE. You can leave the rest of these as exotics until later. Basically, focus on one setup first—the rest can come later.
This new power creep trend is popping up now with the addition of raids. This isnt the players fault though. The enrage timers caused a huge elitist mindset, which was a bad choice on Anets part. Don’t get me wrong, I know where Anet is coming from (I think). With the addition of legendary gear to raids, they didnt want your average Joe to be able to obtain it so they made ascended gear required, only for the dps from what it seems, but they could have went about this so much better!
What I think Anet should have done to keep legendary gear from being obtained by anyone was to keep the timer but make it even shorter…chill dont rage just yet, there is a reason to this. So, instead of 8mins for VG you get 6, but he doesnt enrage after the timer ends, the only thing that will happen is that if you dont make the timer you wont be able to get the achiv or item associated with the legendary armor collection. Also people who beat the boss within the timer get “better” rewards. Maybe more shards or a higher chance at certain drops.
If Anet would consider this change I think this whole ascended gear or go home mentality will be a thing of the past.
What are your thoughts? Do you think that Anet should keep things the way they are or would my suggestion be better? If you dont like either then what would you suggest?
I believe that you are being overly optimistic. Groups that are farming will want the fastest time they can manage. They’ll still insist on an optimum comp. See dungeon behavior for proof.
Doing as you suggest might allow other groups to complete the encounter. However, at least some people will not want to settle for the second place prize and will want access to the optimized groups. Also see dungeon behavior. In fact, in dungeons, most people who complained about exclusion wanted access to any group in the LFG, whether they met the requirements or not.
As to what to do? By making raids hard and using a timer, ANet is stating that they want this content to challenge the better players, not be an everybody can take part. As long as that’s the case, they will not do anything except maybe make raids harder if the, “Too easy!” complaints start to pop up the way they did with dungeons.
Should they make tiers? Well, it worked for Blizz. Still, I think that tiers might not work for players who want to play the raids for the full rewards but don’t want to meet the reqs.
I really hope that in next wing viper will be totally useless.
Low quality trolling since launch
Seafarer’s Rest EotM grinch
Seafarer’s Rest EotM grinch
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