Guild Wars 2

Before 2013 goes, people will be able to have full ascended gear… what do you all think this means for the WvW community and Zerg warfare? I personally feel it could change the game quite a bit, a guild zerg of 15-20 people with full ascended pvt could be just as good as a zerg of 40+pugs wearing exotic gear of varying stats.

Ascended gear won’t be an answer for pure numbers.

Your idea of “just as good” depends on how ANet ends up balancing Exotic, Ascended, and Legendary gear stats, as they have said will happen after they’ve worked out (and probably after actually implementing) the full gear sets including weapons.

Currently, Ascended is barely better than Exotic outside of high level Fractal dungeons, and I’m wearing PVT Ascended trinkets already merely in preparation and only on my most-used character.

Though, to be fair to your point, that means that I’m getting 22k HP on a Mesmer, before the weekly WvW points buff.

I don’t even use ascended gear currently by choice because the min/max stat combination for my style of play / class is better in exotics.

covenn.7165:

I don’t even use ascended gear currently by choice because the min/max stat combination for my style of play / class is better in exotics.

Can you explain how that works? I don’t see how less stats will min/max when higher stats are available.

Meh dude below me answered it. Didn’t think about that…

covenn.7165:

I don’t even use ascended gear currently by choice because the min/max stat combination for my style of play / class is better in exotics.

Also true. I have kept my PTV and Rabid Exotic trinkets because I mixed those with Knights jewels, for when I feel like playing more risky with 50-60% crit chance and ~1k condition damage.

Zikory.6871:

covenn.7165:

I don’t even use ascended gear currently by choice because the min/max stat combination for my style of play / class is better in exotics.

Can you explain how that works? I don’t see how less stats will min/max when higher stats are available.

The “min/max” he’s talking about is the spread of stats across the build, such as PVT referring to Power as the max (major) stat and Vitality/Toughness as the two min (minor) stats.

There are combinations that work very well in some builds for soloists, roamers, or team-composition players, and those stat builds aren’t possible in Ascended trinket gear.

Yeah Virtue, spot on. I wish there was a little more flexibility in the ascended gear so we can interchange things like exotics. Until that happens or new gear is added, I simply will perform better without them.

Yeah I didn’t think about that till after I posted. I fully understand the issue though.

Paz Shadow.9715:

Before 2013 goes, people will be able to have full ascended gear… what do you all think this means for the WvW community and Zerg warfare? I personally feel it could change the game quite a bit, a guild zerg of 15-20 people with full ascended pvt could be just as good as a zerg of 40+pugs wearing exotic gear of varying stats.

A good 20 man guild group can already beat 40 pugs.

If you compare the total stats added by an ascended amulet with a typical exotic amulet, I would not describe the difference as minimal. If the rest of ascended gear has a similar stat boost, it would seem to be very influential in combat.

That said, the adoption rate by players per world is likely to be very much the same, so I doubt there will be any new imbalances.

I am wondering if at some point once enough people are decked out in mostly ascended, if the up-level formula might get tweaked in the lowbies favor a bit to account for it.

Trinkets only:

Exotic PTV

Ascended PTV

When you compare similar types of trinkets together between ascended and exotic, the numbers are tiny.

Berserker exotic amulet / exquisite ruby Jewel = 115 Power, 79 Precision, 8% crit damage
Ascended equivalent = 126 Power, 85 Precision, 9% crit damage.

Add in whatever +10 infusion.. and you get the drift.

In sPvP battles where players are using the same class with the same type of build and are equal skill levels, it may make a difference. In PvE it won’t be noticeable. In WvW, it comes down to bigger numbers and who gets the jump on who first.

Granted I’m sitting on 160+ laurels I think.. I figure I’d wait to see if actual armor will be available for them if the skins look better.

A 5% increase in stats won’t have any impact on anything given how diminished returns work.

There are no diminishing effects on power/crit damage/crit chance. In fact it is the opposite: they stack multiplicatively and each point gets stronger the more you have of the others. It’s why I think ascended is a terrible idea in the first place.

Atherakhia.4086:

A 5% increase in stats won’t have any impact on anything given how diminished returns work.

What does he/shea mean?