Guild Wars 2

Hello all,

After a heated discussion in the general forums, I’ve decided to gather some anecdotal data from the WvW regulars.

So, has the new gear affected your WvW gameplay significantly, and if it did was it positive or negative?

Do enemies in ascended make fights more difficult?
Do friendly players in ascended gear make fights easier?

Are supply camps pushovers in ascended where previously they were difficult?

I highly doubt 99% of WvW players know if either their allies or their enemies are wearing ascended gear or not, so any information you collect will likely be completely made up. When fighting someone else, a WvW player will know whether they win or lose, but player opinions on why they won or lost are due to a number of variables including: the other player’s skill level (subjective), their own skill level (very subjective), the other player having better/worse gear than they had, the other player being a higher/lower level than they were, the other player having a terrible/overpowered build, the other player playing an underpowered/overpowered class, etc. Ascended gear does have better stats than exotic so at the margin it will make a difference, but there will be very few instances where the extra stats will change the outcome of a fight.

No, no, no, and no. Of course, this is all anecdotal and regardless of the perceived opinion of the masses, means nothing.

With what we have now? No. In the future with full Ascended vs full Exotics…I’ll just say which one I’d rather have: Ascended.

I have noticed no difference in WvW play since they introduced ascended gear.

My win:loss ratio is virtually unchanged, and until last week the only piece of ascended gear I had was one ring. Now I have one ring and an amulet. No backpiece, no second ring, and no accessories.

I suspected people freaking out about ascended gear ruining GW2 were just being doomsayers, and I am more certain now.

Mackdose.6504:

Are supply camps pushovers in ascended where previously they were difficult?

Wut? Supply camps are pushovers in greens. The only “hard” part of a camp is a buffed supervisor, and when he’s buffed it doesn’t matter if you have whites or ascended.

2 zerker rings, cavalier backpiece, zerker amulet and I have an increase of 5% crit damage. Bad deal.

I can see there being a difference once the whole set is available though, but as it currently sits there is no difference. I still die a lot.

Would you say it matters more or less who has the gear in a small skirmish, say 4v4 – 6v6?

Can’t say I often lose or win by a small margin (only time it matters), and even when it happens I have no way of knowing whether my opponent had ascended gear or not.

Maybe when ascended weapons and full gear sets are available this will change.

i think thieves, mesmers and ele would still take a dump on my ranger if i had full ascended gear and they had exotics (or even rares as bad as that is).

if this game had some semblance of balance i might be able to answer but atm they are so far above the other classes the extra stats make no difference.

If a dedicated 40 man wvw guild all had ascended it would make a difference.

But for one person it’s not much different than going up against someone thats using food when your not

broseph i have all asended trinkets now and it is making a difference, not much, but that extra crit dmg from all trinks and powa and prec adds up. I run a typically glass cannon no skill thief, backstab perma stealth C&D spam and my backstabs are at least a 1k-1.5k higher. Also when i equip my condition trinkets (don’t have the carrion acessories yet just zerker) and i go no skill C&D spam(first had pistol) plus shortbow choking gas, that extra condi dmg is there. Still have to work towards carrion accessories, but once obtained the difference will be more suitable.

If I had to put my 2 cents I would say that offensive ascended trinks have a noticeable difference then purely defensive ones. It is all percentages so thats why I only have em for my thief who can do more dps then my other classes, cept my gimmick OP mesmer glass cannon build. 2 much work though to get pieces for her so I just stick to exos.

Haven’t noticed any difference whatsoever. On the receiving end that is because I don’ t have any ascended stuffs and won’t have any time soon unless they make it available for badges / karma.
It’s actually what I expected and also posted when a lot of folks all over the interwebz were crying that the sky was falling and everybody would need to do fractals to remain competetive etc.
For me it’s the same minor stat improvement as from green/rare mix to exotic which was hardly noticable at all for me on both the dealing and receiving end on 3 different classes (staff ele, rifle bunker engi and longbow ranger, not exactly the most powerful class builds either).

Yes, i have same build as I did with exotics but i gave up on lil amount of power and went ascended with some toughness power crit and now my damage is same but toughness and vita up alot.

The only difference is that I had to go FotM to appease my OCD and collect all the ascended gear. Now I’m having to go out of my way to make sure I complete the daily and monthly achievements to buy the new ascended stuff.
So basically, the only difference it made for me (somebody who likes to have the top stats of what’s available) is that I have less time to play the game the way I want and more time grinding for the gear my OCD must have.

EDIT: I should add, I don’t really have OCD, but like many, I’m compelled to get the new gear.

Mackdose.6504:

Hello all,

After a heated discussion in the general forums, I’ve decided to gather some anecdotal data from the WvW regulars.

So, has the new gear affected your WvW gameplay significantly, and if it did was it positive or negative?

Do enemies in ascended make fights more difficult?
Do friendly players in ascended gear make fights easier?

Are supply camps pushovers in ascended where previously they were difficult?

I’d say Ascended gear has done little but cause me grief and woe. It completely changed the entire nature of the game for me, psychologically speaking anyways

Whereas before I could easily cultivate a small stable of characters in multiple sets of bloody good gear these days I cannot. Now if I wanted all of my characters and all of my gear sets to preform the best they possibly can I have to do boatloads of fractals, grind out the terribly tedious and boring new daily for MONTHS on end, and now I need to do these sodding guild missions which my guild is too small to reasonably do apart from the first tier.

All 3 of those things take me out of WvW, which is the whole reason I started playing the game in the first place and the ONLY reason I’ve sunk some ~900 hours into it.

For me, Anet has continuously and consciously made the game worse without adding a single positive thing. Ascended gear may only be a part of that trend, but it was a significant one.

Naturally, I no longer play because of these issues.

Um, I was just trolling btw on my post, there is no noticeable difference with my ascended gear I have. Perhaps if ascended armorz come out then there will be a difference.

yes…i could put correct my build adding more stats where i needed…

Is it fair? no.

I refuse to do PvE, and I don’t have Ascended Gear. That said, I compete just fine with those who have it, and I run solo a lot in WvW. My issue with Ascended Gear is that it has created a situation where far too many people leave WvW for PvE, and that sucks for the WvW community.

I want those people out of PvE, and back in WvW.

Yes. The major factor with ascended items is that crit damage is increasing by 1/3rd on ascended gear while other stats are very minor. This means that all builds, pure damage and hybrid, and becoming burstier at an alarming rate.

I haven’t said whether this is a good or bad thing, because I don’t really care, but the crit damage stat creep on ascended gear is a major increase and shouldn’t be overlooked.

The larger the engagement, the less it really matters. But even in smaller fights (1v1, 3v3, 5v5, etc.), the difference is negligible with what we have available at present.

Yes, it makes a difference. Not a huge one, but there is a difference in stats and hence it makes a difference. Is it a major difference? No.

In a pure 50/50 fight, that 5% crit chance difference might make the difference in you getting that crucial crit hit at just the right time. Will you ever know? Unlikely.

What’s vastly more annoying is bringing in laurels, making all the ascended stuff untradeable and basically saying ‘do pve if you want ascended items’ and then saying ‘if you have multiple toons you are stuffed’.

After working out how long it would take to gear up my ten lvl80 full exotic toons (or even just the 3 I play most often in wvw) I reached an easy decision: I left the game.

Probably back after the wvw update just to see if they did anything that the players have been asking for to make wvw vaguely enjoyable again.