Guild Wars 2

Ascended Weapons:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/september-03-2013/

My first thought was WvW. Legendaries will be buffed to ascended status, that’s a little avantage in WvW, but you could just get an ascended weapon to have the same, BUT how expensive is that? do I will be forced to “farm” to have the same stats of PvEers?

You will obtain these materials from a variety of things. You will be forced to do dungeons, jumping puzzles, crafting etc if you want to obtain them in a reasonable time.

Conversively, PvE players will have to go into WvW if they want to get their weapons as quick as possible. However, the time you need to spend in WvW will be very much shorter than the time you need to spend in PvE for the respective rewards.

Think of them as Laurels. Just more daily achievements for doing different things in the game. If you don’t play for a week or two, or if you can only play a couple of days a week, you are shafted.

NeHoMaR.9812:

Ascended Weapons:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/september-03-2013/

My first thought was WvW. Legendaries will be buffed to ascended status, that’s a little avantage in WvW, but you could just get an ascended weapon to have the same, BUT how expensive is that? do I will be forced to “farm” to have the same stats of PvEers?

My guess is yes. Legendaries require an exceptional amount of PvE-exclusive content to complete. Ascended gear IS available through WvW, but you’d still need a ridiculous amount of laurels (hooray for time-gating gear) and ectos (better off farming PvE). Or you can go the guild commendation route, but that’s also PvE crap.

Granted, the advantage gained from ascended gear doesn’t make as much of an impact as skilled play does, but it’s power creep nonetheless. Heavily PvE-dependent power creep.

Gab Superstar.4059:

Conversively, PvE players will have to go into WvW if they want to get their weapons as quick as possible. However, the time you need to spend in WvW will be very much shorter than the time you need to spend in WvW for the respective rewards.

The PvE crowd was given excessive amounts of free Badges of Honor through achievement chests… enough for multiple legendaries. Right now, the only WvW-specific requirement a PvE player has to fulfill is map completion, and ANet practically handed that to them on a silver platter by randomizing team colors and match-ups.

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

Gab Superstar.4059:

Conversively, PvE players will have to go into WvW if they want to get their weapons as quick as possible. However, the time you need to spend in WvW will be very much shorter than the time you need to spend in WvW for the respective rewards.

The PvE crowd was given excessive amounts of free Badges of Honor through achievement chests… enough for multiple legendaries. Right now, the only WvW-specific requirement a PvE player has to fulfill is map completion, and ANet practically handed that to them on a silver platter by randomizing team colors and match-ups.

If I was unclear: I don’t think Laurels will be used for ascended weapons. Instead, there will be new T7 materials rewarded for doing different aspects of the game daily. From the Looking Ahead in 2013 blog post:

We’ll also add a new set of account-bound crafting materials to the game. You’ll receive these materials as guaranteed rewards once per day per unique location for completing content within a category of gameplay in Guild Wars 2.

For example, capturing camps, towers, and keeps in WvW will earn you these crafting materials. In the Living World, you can earn them for killing giant world bosses, defeating dungeons, completing jumping puzzles, completing mini-dungeons, finishing some types of guild missions, capturing temples in Orr, and other activities.

So basically the best way to obtain Ascended weapons is to transfer once a week to whatever server you think will stomp WvW the hardest, hop into WvW and karma train each map once per day then hop out and do the PvE parts.

If you are playing on Vabbi or FoW for example, I’d advice you to get the hell out because you will never be able to compete with the other servers.

Well, I hope the difference (in stats) between ascended and exotic weapons is not too much. Because I am not getting a legendary (not interested), and looks like the ascended weapons will be time consuming to get.

I bet ascended weapons will have the same complains as old ascended items, until they add a Badges of Honor version of ascended weapons (they should upgrade the exotic ones you get on NPCs to ascended version (or add), doesn’t matter if the skin is ugly, and make that weapons cost more badges, so PvEers don’t complain, a balance)

NeHoMaR.9812:

Well, I hope the difference (in stats) between ascended and exotic weapons is not too much. Because I am not getting a legendary (not interested), and looks like the ascended weapons will be time consuming to get.

I bet ascended weapons will have the same complains as old ascended items, until they add a Badges of Honor version of ascended weapons (if they are not adding that in this update)

The stat difference per piece is slight. But that difference multiplies when you factor in all slots (6 for trinkets+back piece, 1 or 2 for weapons, plus 6 more assuming there will be ascended armor eventually).

And so far, Badges of Honor continue to get shafted as a suitable form of currency. Practically any gear you can buy with them also has a gold/ecto/laurel cost tacked on to it.

Don’t worry guis, they don’t want this game to be a farmfest.
Lol.

The game is (mainly WvW) is moving towards where the players don’t want the gamr to be. Oh well.

NeHoMaR.9812:

Well, I hope the difference (in stats) between ascended and exotic weapons is not too much. Because I am not getting a legendary (not interested), and looks like the ascended weapons will be time consuming to get.

I bet ascended weapons will have the same complains as old ascended items, until they add a Badges of Honor version of ascended weapons (they should upgrade the exotic ones you get on NPCs to ascended version (or add), doesn’t matter if the skin is ugly, and make that weapons cost more badges, so PvEers don’t complain, a balance)

Sadly my money is that they will be a large advantage. This is based on how anet has handled things in the past (poorly). Being forced to pve to enjoy wvw is a bad idea.

WoW 2.0

Grind PvE so you can PvP

DevonCarver.5370:

Bailey.6892:

Sadly my money is that they will be a large advantage. This is based on how anet has handled things in the past (poorly). Being forced to pve to enjoy wvw is a bad idea.

My goal is to eliminate the latter scenario. And I promise to do as much as I can to meet that.

Will ascended weaps be available via badges or some new, similar similar WvW based method? Can you at least tell us that much?

pretty sure they want to focus on rolling out the ascended crafting system.

I doubt theyd put the ascended weapons available w/ badges, unless they also put them on the laurel store.

maybe turning badges into t7 mats?

Shoe.5821:

pretty sure they want to focus on rolling out the ascended crafting system.

I doubt theyd put the ascended weapons available w/ badges, unless they also put them on the laurel store.

maybe turning badges into t7 mats?

I never craft though. It was never required of me before. The pittance I can make in WvW was always still enough to get foods and oils. We know (or are fairly certain) that ascended weapons are going to require time gated materials like the quartz crystals. That’s going to keep prices fairly high. So now choices are going to be PvE enough to afford to craft from level 25-500, or PvE enough to be able to afford ~2 of these. Either way, I do feel a bit left behind as a WvWer.

Edit: Either way, I definitely feel like I have to grind. I’m thinking the devs once mentioned something about not having to do that.

Colin already told us that the new crafting mats (needed for crafting a Legendary) will also be available through WvW. Also Devon before here:

“The mats will absolutely drop in WvW. In addition, generally speaking, we are putting a heavier emphasis on finding long-term solutions to redressing the reward imbalance between PvE and WvW. I can’t claim they will ever be 100% equal all the time, but we would like it to never be the case that you are choosing between playing WvW and getting good rewards. The two should be one in the same.”

I think as long as they drop from not only 1 source (capping towers via zergs) it’s a good solution. Every choice of playstyle should be rewarded. The scout should have the same chance as small groups capturing camps or big zergs capturing towers. I’d also like to see defending towers being rewarded. Most of the time players stay back as watchposts and have a very important function as this… but see no reward. Quite the opposite: they see no loot and have a quite boring time. I think that these volunteers should be thought of too.

out of the blue idea: give those defending players events inside and outside of the tower they’re defending + benefits for participating. Once a player is in proximity of a tower the structure is temporary upgraded with a npc spotter who spots every non-cloaked enemy player and calls this in mapchat. This opens up the possibility for players defending to accomplish smaller tasks around the tower (like collecting event-items in order to make the tower even stronger, train the npcs in combat and shieldstance to make them stronger and more enduring vs. huge zergs etc.). This way capturing towers with a zerg becomes more difficult / challenging.

When enemy attack the tower other events start happening too: once defenders are there all the npcs get upgraded with a few new skills (invulnerability, aoe, etc.) while inside the tower a enemy npc-champion spawns and can be fought by defenders. Once this battle is successful the tower gets a bonus like a breakout npc commander who storms out of the tower and attacks the attackers with powerfull anti-zerg skills.

Yes, it’s a lot of PvE in WvW, but it’s there to make the game more interesting and fun.

We can’t have everything for free, but I hope the WVW community is given a fair chance to earn ascended and legendary items within a reasonable time frame.

It will probably be like the rest of the game where it’s possible to get it from WvW, but you will be able to get it 20 times faster if you play PvE. Just compare the amount of time it takes to farm enough badges to buy a full set of PVT gear in WvW vs. the amount of time it takes to farm enough karma to buy a full set of PVT in the zombie place. Or compare the amount of time it takes to get an ascended ring from rank up chests vs. the amount of time it takes to get an ascended ring from running fractals.

Furiousbeard.7602:

We can’t have everything for free, but I hope the WVW community is given a fair chance to earn ascended and legendary items within a reasonable time frame.

Ascended agree. Legendary disagree.

For ascended, we should be able to earn those in the same amount of time as someone in PvE. For legendary, those should take a reeeeeallly long time for anyone who wants one (besides it is just a skin, so who cares)

Not just a skin, its always BIS, which means any legendary owner probably doesn’t care as much about this patch, in terms of panicking about acquiring an ascended weapon, as people without one. If you own the legendary weapons you want to use, and don’t really give a hoot about alts, then you never have to worry about new tiers of weapons, then you are set for life.

Plus it’s more flexible, pick any stat when you want. AWESOME
——————-
Side note: can anyone link to verify anything this guy said earlier.

“You will obtain these materials from a variety of things. You will be forced to do dungeons, jumping puzzles, crafting etc if you want to obtain them in a reasonable time.
Conversively, PvE players will have to go into WvW if they want to get their weapons as quick as possible. However, the time you need to spend in WvW will be very much shorter than the time you need to spend in PvE for the respective rewards.”

Thanks, just trying to sort out wild nonsense from things devs have actually written.

Xom.9264:

WoW 2.0

Grind PvE so you can PvP

Which would be an utter failure of Anet’s original manifesto and advertised design philosophy.

DevonCarver.5370:

Bailey.6892:

Sadly my money is that they will be a large advantage. This is based on how anet has handled things in the past (poorly). Being forced to pve to enjoy wvw is a bad idea.

My goal is to eliminate the latter scenario. And I promise to do as much as I can to meet that.

Don’t forget some people (like myself) are not interested the fancy weapons skins, but having the ascended STATS on the weapons as soon as possible to be 100% effective PvPing (in WvW). So, I expect to be able to get a cheap, ugly skin weapon with ascended stats, fast after update, with karma/badges. If I only want stats, why I would farm this or pay big amount of gold for it? I don’t want to show the weapon to others, just be 100% effective in battle. Plus I don’t use only one weapon, I use three all the time, and sometimes change to two more weapons, for a total of five weapons I need with maxed stats (I will feel inferior not having the maximum stats available, for months maybe? until I am able to craft the five weapons? and then overwrite the skin with something I like more?).

DevonCarver.5370:

My goal is to eliminate the latter scenario. And I promise to do as much as I can to meet that.

Save us Devon Carver, your our only hope.

Pendragon.8735:

Xom.9264:

WoW 2.0

Grind PvE so you can PvP

Which would be an utter failure of Anet’s original manifesto and advertised design philosophy.

I would argue WoW and so many other MMO’s are more like “grind PvP so you can PvP effectively” due to the existence of a PvP-specific stat or two, but it’s still a bunk philosophy. (Unless WoW has done away with their PvP specific stat, I seem to remember there being one in vanilla. I know TOR, Rift and DCUO have PvP-specific stats. I also know that’s why I’m not playing any of those.)

I have a simple question, will we ever be able to buy ascended weapons with badges? Or craft the weapons with badges? Farming is too boring for me.

I don’t mind the ugliest of skins, just let it have ascended stats and are easily obtainable. I have 5 characters and I’m planning on all 8, 1 for each profession. I don’t mind if my GS looks like a kittening stick or a magic wand, I just need it to be ascended.

DevonCarver.5370:

Bailey.6892:

Sadly my money is that they will be a large advantage. This is based on how anet has handled things in the past (poorly). Being forced to pve to enjoy wvw is a bad idea.

My goal is to eliminate the latter scenario. And I promise to do as much as I can to meet that.

I take it that since legendaries will soon be able to have stat changes out of combat, it would be possible to do this for other gear?

Why not just get it over with and make a system where a character has a set of WvW gear (armor and trinkets) that can have its stat combos tweaked outside of WvW, along with a bag slot for extra weapons? Each piece could also have a slot for the WvW infusions that are ridiculously expensive right now too, if you’re trying to get ascended gear with laurels.

The progression in this system would be account bound unlocks (unlock soldier’s stats, unlock superior sigil of air, unlock superior rune of divinity, unlock skin etc.) for a modest amount of badges. Then you can simply adjust your gear as needed. It would also be incredibly nice to be able to save an entire gear loadout as a template!

If you are serious about letting WvW players play without having to farm PvE for gold or doing PvE for decent skins, this is the only way to do it. It would sill be a bit of a grind, but a goal with an actual result that is useful when you’ve done it and worth playing for so you can easily make different builds for WvW like sPvP. That is what makes the game fun in the long term. Otherwise you are just dangling empty calorie carrots in front of people that are kind-maybe-not-really fun for about two weeks.

If this were to actually happen, it would also be nice to maybe have a special item to put in the mystic forge with our old unwanted gear that returned badges, xp or whatever is needed for the new unlocks. This would probably help the PvE economy so WvW players don’t dump a bunch of stuff on the market all at once too.

PS: Account bound world XP.

zen.6091:

DevonCarver.5370:

Bailey.6892:

Sadly my money is that they will be a large advantage. This is based on how anet has handled things in the past (poorly). Being forced to pve to enjoy wvw is a bad idea.

My goal is to eliminate the latter scenario. And I promise to do as much as I can to meet that.

I take it that since legendaries will soon be able to have stat changes out of combat, it would be possible to do this for other gear?

Why not just get it over with and make a system where a character has a set of WvW gear (armor and trinkets) that can have its stat combos tweaked outside of WvW, along with a bag slot for extra weapons? Each piece could also have a slot for the WvW infusions that are ridiculously expensive right now too, if you’re trying to get ascended gear with laurels.

The progression in this system would be account bound unlocks (unlock soldier’s stats, unlock superior sigil of air, unlock superior rune of divinity, unlock skin etc.) for a modest amount of badges. Then you can simply adjust your gear as needed. It would also be incredibly nice to be able to save an entire gear loadout as a template!

If you are serious about letting WvW players play without having to farm PvE for gold or doing PvE for decent skins, this is the only way to do it. It would sill be a bit of a grind, but a goal with an actual result that is useful when you’ve done it and worth playing for so you can easily make different builds for WvW like sPvP. That is what makes the game fun in the long term. Otherwise you are just dangling empty calorie carrots in front of people that are kind-maybe-not-really fun for about two weeks.

If this were to actually happen, it would also be nice to maybe have a special item to put in the mystic forge with our old unwanted gear that returned badges, xp or whatever is needed for the new unlocks. This would probably help the PvE economy so WvW players don’t dump a bunch of stuff on the market all at once too.

PS: Account bound world XP.

While I think you’ve got an awesome idea there (several, actually!), Devon has all but said that the devs feel obligated to push us back into PvE every once in a while. Here are my thoughts from another thread.

Klawlyt.6507:

DevonCarver.5370:

Precursors do drop from the chests, but very rarely. I’d love to say you should be able to get everything ever from just playing WvW, but not only is that not going to happen, it’s not good for the game as a whole. We will continue to do what we can to improve the rewards available from WvW and there are some developments specifically relating to skill points that are coming soon to the game as a whole, but honestly if you want to get all the things in the game, you have to play all the game. Branch out, I suspect you’ll enjoy it. And WvW will still be there when you want to play it.

(emphasis mine)

That’s basically admitting that they have to cajole us back into PvE for whatever reason. Be it making the LS look more populated than it would be otherwise or whatever. Granted, this post was about getting particular shinies. Shinies which I have no problem going without, but it still betrays that the devs feel the need to push us back into PvE for some reason. It was kind of insulting (and as a general rule, I’ll defend Devon and the devs) that he was implying that all of us in WvW land had no idea what we were missing. I’d wager most WvWers got their $60 out of PvE and are sticking around specifically for the WvW. That would be, like, playing how you want to play.

This is a huge issue.
As a pvp-focused player that just like someone above me said and many others are I was brought here to the idea that it was going to be quick and easy to gear up so I would be able to play competitively.
Now trinkets alone with laurels take like 2 months to get (assuming you keep an eye on completing daily/monthly a pvp-oriented player already doesn’t care about) and they give already a quite considerable buff.

You guys better fix this up and do it quick because as soon as ascended full gear will start popping up in wvw giving many people big stat disadvantages that will make them quit as fast as you can blink.
I know I will. And I now I’m not alone.

So to sum it up:

You clearly stated in the game manifesto that everyone would have fast access to top level gear for equal fights and I and many others have been baited by that.
I want to play vs other people in a good game with good gameplay and good mechanics/environment. EQUALLY.
I don’t have time to farm your bullkitten.
I expect you to fix the situation. And not because I’m a pretentious spoiled brat that wants everything and wants it now. I expect you to do that because that’s what pvpers want, that’s what you advertised, that’s what got me to buy the game, and that’s what you’re screwing up.

From what i’ve been told. To get ascended gear you need to buy the recipes, these cost laurals.
The recipes for the actual weapons require combo-mats, imagine combining two different mats together (f.e. Steel and a Dust) to create a new mat that is used in crafting. These are typically BoP or BoA and not tradeable.

Since anet hinted at needing rare world mats this can likely mean some rare drops or dungeon drops or possibly fractals materials.

Now this could be a problem for a WvW player in some ways

1) Very limited gathering. So you either have to go PvE to farm mats, or drop coin on it.
2) Not a lot of gold income for WvW players, prices are inflated for the PvE gold income.
3) Having to do dungeons/world events to get materials.

These issues could very well be resolved if these special materials were available in WvW. Either because there is a more diverse (and richer) yield of crafting materials and have these special materials available for WvW aswell.

Either way i’d recommend people save up their mats, even low level mats, untill we have more certainty. These Soft Wood Logs you’re selling now might be needed later, and then their price will have exploded.

Let’s face it. They have multiple teams developing ‘new content’ for the pve’rs, including events that yield large amounts of gold per hour and next week it’s Jump Puzzle 2’s latest instalment for more skins, unique items, etc.

Meanwhile in wvw we now apparently get ‘liquid wexp’, which seems to be almost as rare as getting a rare item from achieving a rank. If the drop rate in wvw for new materials is as low as these are then forget it, you’ll never make a new set.

But the rich pve’rs will come in to wvw with their fully fitted out ascended gears and adjustable legendary weapons and have better stats than you.

Gaining a rank should grant achievement points- how many can you gain in a day of farming the endless pve events? Now compare that to the TOTAL achievement points you have made playing wvw since launch. That tells you all you need to know about the chances of wvw’rs ever getting the new gears and weapons.

DevonCarver.5370:

Bailey.6892:

Sadly my money is that they will be a large advantage. This is based on how anet has handled things in the past (poorly). Being forced to pve to enjoy wvw is a bad idea.

My goal is to eliminate the latter scenario. And I promise to do as much as I can to meet that.

Will you also try to eliminate the being forced to WvW to finish map completion?

Victory.2879:

If the drop rate in wvw for new materials is as low as these are then forget it, you’ll never make a new set.

Except it apparently won’t have any “drop rate”.
From the official blog post quoted above:

You’ll receive these materials as guaranteed rewards once per day per unique location (…)

For example, capturing camps, towers, and keeps in WvW will earn you these crafting materials.

So there you are, guaranteed non random access.

Ascended weapons? Thats horrible news for me!

I’m a casual (1h max per day) playing WvW only. My main is a warrior and I switch regularly between sword, shield, warhorn, greatsword, rifle and longbow. I also have all the other weapons in my chest, just in case I get bored with the other weapons.

How long will it take to get all of those as ascended weapons? Its ridiculous because some professions are carrying way more weapons around like others. I mean just compare Warrior with Elementalist.

GW2 was very casual friendly until now. Maybe its time for me to move on!?

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

Will you also try to eliminate the being forced to WvW to finish map completion?

They already did when they randomized your server colour every week. You dont have to pick a single fight, just hop in every week and take the points you dont have. The hardest is probably Stonemist. Check several times a day in the scoreboard if your server has it, then just run upto it and tag the things you need.

Completing a WvW map takes far less time then any other map. They are smaller, have less POI, less vista’s, less skill challenges and no Heartevents.

I thought you wanted to explore different maps and see the things they have to show you? Why would you then want less maps?

So how much exactly do we know about the materials required?

A. There are materials which are constructed from other, lower-tier materials. Most crafting mats are obtainable in WvW; the main difficulty is rare crafting mats. PVE does have an advantage, but we don’t know how much by.
B. There are materials which are granted by completing some kind of content on a daily basis, and WvW was explicitly included as an example of this. I don’t know whether we should assume this is “daily per content” so you can get one by JPing, one by wvwing, one by pveing… Or whether it’s “material per day” in which case WvW is enough to get it.

What bothers me is that when that patch goes live anyone with a legendary weapon will have an advantage over anyone with just an exotic weapon until you can get someone up high enough to craft the Ascended ones. Add to that the time required to get the materials together for such a weapon. Depending on the grind necessary it could be possible within a few days or it could take weeks or even months.

It may take a few days for hardcore players but a few weeks to months for casual players. It also depends on how many weapons you are carrying. Some classes only have one weapon (e.g. staff ele) while others have up to 4. And thats only counting one spec.

I’m running around with a bunch of weapons (warrior), switching back and forth. I can switch weapon sets from my bag depending on the situation in WvW.

So now I have to grind for at least 6 ascended weapons (thats the ones I use the most in WvW), just to not be subpar. I’m a casual player with an average ingame time of 1h per day. Awesome!

Ohh I didn’t even think of that. For once engi’s lack of options could be seen as a boon! Poor warriors. Do we know for sure yet if they’ll be time gated by account or by character?

Gab Superstar.4059:

You will obtain these materials from a variety of things. You will be forced to do dungeons, jumping puzzles, crafting etc if you want to obtain them in a reasonable time.

Conversively, PvE players will have to go into WvW if they want to get their weapons as quick as possible. However, the time you need to spend in WvW will be very much shorter than the time you need to spend in PvE for the respective rewards.

Think of them as Laurels. Just more daily achievements for doing different things in the game. If you don’t play for a week or two, or if you can only play a couple of days a week, you are shafted.

This is crap to me, I know I don’t want PvEr’s in WvW, 99% of the time they are just there for map comp, not to help out, they take up space in the que that would be used up by someone that will use it to actually help, our BL is always in trouble cause PvEr’s go there and farm and think they are safe, last thing we need is Anet trying to get more PvEr’s into WvW.

Anet needs to pay more attention to WvW and Less to PvE, I feel real bad for everyone who thought this was going to be a pvp based game, we sure got shafted.

DevonCarver.5370:

My goal is to eliminate the latter scenario. And I promise to do as much as I can to meet that.

How about no ascended items at all in game then? Delete the ascended trinkets, delete the weapons update and focus on really cool skins instead of stat progression.

I’m very disappointed about these ascended weapons that will be a real problem for WvW only players like me. At least make these weapons buyable with a certain amount of badges like 500. I have one character with only a weapon but I can imagine the disaster that players with more characters and weapons are going to face. Please give us more information about how WvW players are going to buy these weapons.

There is nothing worse than increase the best equipment possible after release in a game where WvW should be the most important part.

Do you think is fair to have the necessity to farm fractal in order to have the ascended back that will give also an advantage in WvW?

teg.1340:

It may take a few days for hardcore players but a few weeks to months for casual players. It also depends on how many weapons you are carrying. Some classes only have one weapon (e.g. staff ele) while others have up to 4. And thats only counting one spec.

I’m running around with a bunch of weapons (warrior), switching back and forth. I can switch weapon sets from my bag depending on the situation in WvW.

So now I have to grind for at least 6 ascended weapons (thats the ones I use the most in WvW), just to not be subpar. I’m a casual player with an average ingame time of 1h per day. Awesome!

To be fair, you don’t need ascended items at all to be competitive, except if you are aiming for duels and gank.

I’m just hoping that T7 materials to drop only in fractals, just to give a final blow to www players coz so far this was the death of a tousand cuts.

DevonCarver.5370:

Bailey.6892:

Sadly my money is that they will be a large advantage. This is based on how anet has handled things in the past (poorly). Being forced to pve to enjoy wvw is a bad idea.

My goal is to eliminate the latter scenario. And I promise to do as much as I can to meet that.

Thank you for the reply, so how is this going to be accomplished before the ascended weapons are introduced. The pve players already have a huge advantage with their legendries once the patch goes live and they are boosted.

Legendary/Ascended is a concern for any WvW focused player that has no interest in PvE. I myself play both so Im sure at some point I’ll acquire an ascended weapon or two. I just hate the fact that this stuff is being forced upon players that only want to live in WvW.

Im getting the feeling that lately, arenanet is battling larger and more vocal mobs about their design direction than ever before, even more so than the november 15 patch. Kind of makes me uneasy about giving this game anymore of my precious time.

To be fair, you don’t need ascended items at all to be competitive, except if you are aiming for duels and gank.

Actually you will need the weapons. Especially for solo camp flippers or small groups who are assigned to take camps. Their is already a large enough problems with thief’s for example and their damage + stealth. Now add more damage on top of that and have the non pve player with a lower damage weapon. Yes this is a hughe mistake and an issue that needs to be killed before it goes live.

I’m doing lots of solo roaming in WvW so I definitely want to have ascended items. Currently I have 3 ascended trinkets, rest is still exotics. Im ok with this because its just a few stats, that I loose.

But ascended weapons is different to trinkets. Its not only stats but also base damage! You definitely want to have ascended weapons for WvW, no matter if you solo roam or going with the zerg.

DevonCarver.5370:

Bailey.6892:

Sadly my money is that they will be a large advantage. This is based on how anet has handled things in the past (poorly). Being forced to pve to enjoy wvw is a bad idea.

My goal is to eliminate the latter scenario. And I promise to do as much as I can to meet that.

It would take very little effort to add an ascended back piece that can be gotten with badges. It would take very little effort to fix the trinket that still cannot be bought with badges.

I am not sure I believe you Devon. I call Shenanigans …..break out the brooms.

BS gear grind. Just like Anet said they didnt want.

eithinan.9841:

BS gear grind. Just like Anet said they didnt want.

Yea, I’m really disappointed too. I play multiple characters and each has a number of armor sets. Anet, are you discouraging us to play multiple characters and figure out the best build for our playstyle?

DevonCarver.5370:

My goal is to eliminate the latter scenario. And I promise to do as much as I can to meet that.

Thank you Devon, it’s good to know that WvW players will be taken into consideration in terms of end-game gear accessibility. I for one would very much like to avoid a repeat of the situation that arose with the introduction of ascended trinkets – that is, players being forced to play certain formats to gain access to gear. By the way, we WvW players would still very much like access to an ascended backpiece. I hope you can help us with that.

I understand that you would like to promote certain aspects of your game from time to time, but in my opinion you’re better off doing this with rewards that are aesthetically unique rather than statistically superior. The living world content you’re producing is a great example of how to do this the right way (ie introducing new weapon and armor skins to help promote the concept). Now take a look at guild missions. They are tied to a specific best-in-slot item type, namely ascended accessories, and the only other way of accessing that item type is through a steep cost in laurels (with no discount for badges) and ectoplasm. Of course it’s your game, and you’re entitled to go down this route if you wish, but I think the first option is far better and will leave far fewer players disgruntled with the experience.

I know that WvW isn’t meant to be balanced or competitive in the same way that sPvP is, but in practice that fact isn’t all that relevant to WvW players. The players themselves, or at least a good portion of them, are competitive in nature, and that’s what matters. Unlike PvE players, they do not consider progressively better weapons and armor a reward at all. They view WvW in the same way that you might look at a game of chess. A specific amount of pieces, identical in power, are given to each player, and those pieces do not function as rewards, but rather simply as a means to promote the gameplay. The reward is beating the opposition.

Of course I realize WvW isn’t only for the competitive player – it has to cater to a broader spectrum. But that being said, it would be better if we could avoid being forced to drag ourselves through masses of PvE content to acquire endgame gear. Anything you can do to facilitate that would be greatly appreciated.