Guild Wars 2

is anyone else really concerned about ascended stats snowball when the armor comes out? i bought this game for hardcore pvp/WvW, it’s all that ive been doing, and im very concerned. this new level of grind will be introduced, fine. but will we get the opportunity to get the armor in WvW from killing people and taking objectives?

stats difference between exo and ascended will be significant…if it’s significant enough, i dont see myself playing this game in the future unless all the ascended gear is accessible through pvp in some way.

Ascended gear will not make you win a fight unless you were good enough to win it anyway.
The extra stats (5% or something like that) won’t really make much of a difference.

Another thing to keep in mind is that WvW was never meant to be fair or balanced.

The issue I have Ascended gear is Laurels, there is far to many currencies in GW2. I hate that I’m forced to do Dailies/Monthlies in order to get Laurels which are needed to gear up, I just want to WvW without feeling like I have to complete some random crap I have no interest in doing.

Badges of Honor are the WvW currency and have been from day 1, why does Anet feel we need to earn more types of currencies for the aspect of the game that we enjoy ? Make Acsended cost a repulsive amount of Badges for all I care just get rid of the Laurel cost.

lordkrall.7241:

Ascended gear will not make you win a fight unless you were good enough to win it anyway.
The extra stats (5% or something like that) won’t really make much of a difference.

Another thing to keep in mind is that WvW was never meant to be fair or balanced.

And if 2 groups of equal skill are fighting each other, only one of them has a crackton of ascended because they can farm out in fractals )and actually enjoy fractals, crafting, mat grinding, ie, they have too much time on their hands) then…

“Not much of a difference” is like saying “not much a bullet wound” to the knife fighter after his opponent was handed a gun.

Movement of exotic gear to a sub-level armor/weapon set is a legitimate concern to people who believed anet when they said no grind. I’d like to see some legitimate replies to this kind of topic.

If two groups of EXACT equal skill would meet up gear MIGHT decide the outcome.
But there are several other things that might also decide the outcome such as Lag, Buffs, Foods, Professions, Gear used, Experience and so on.

It is extremely unlikely that two exactly equal groups would ever face off, and if they did there are way more stuff than those few extra stat-points that might effect the outcome.

it’s going to be a lot more than a 5% difference. and that’s PER character, as Melody mentioned. imagine 20 people with a 5% advantage in stats. yeah. but it’s gonne be more than 5 when the armor comes in.

And yet it is fully possible for a group running around in Rare or even Mastercrafted gear to defeat a group in exotic, where the gaps are even larger.
The situations where those tiny bit of extra stats would be the only thing that effected the outcome are so unlikely that we might never even see them during the lifetime of the game.

lordkrall.7241:

Ascended gear will not make you win a fight unless you were good enough to win it anyway.
The extra stats (5% or something like that) won’t really make much of a difference.

Another thing to keep in mind is that WvW was never meant to be fair or balanced.

There are aspects which need to be balanced, and others which need not. Our skill shouldn’t have to make up for the inferior armor we wear.

Seigfried.5938:

There are aspects which need to be balanced, and others which need not. Our skill shouldn’t have to make up for the inferior armor we wear.

So why isn’t there an issue with all the other gear tiers then? Where the difference is even larger?

lordkrall.7241:

If two groups of EXACT equal skill would meet up gear MIGHT decide the outcome.
But there are several other things that might also decide the outcome such as Lag, Buffs, Foods, Professions, Gear used, Experience and so on.

It is extremely unlikely that two exactly equal groups would ever face off, and if they did there are way more stuff than those few extra stat-points that might effect the outcome.

you forgot total numbers too , fixed dat for you lol

lordkrall.7241:

Another thing to keep in mind is that WvW was never meant to be fair or balanced.

This always struck me as a bit of a flawed philosophy. I am sure it is “intended” to be fair and balanced, its just not practically achievable do to the current design.

However, I do agree that ascended gear probably won’t make too much of a difference. Certainly not in a group/zerg. Individual on individual… perhaps if skill level is at the same scratch and builds are identical…

that’s where you misunderstand. the difference is amplified as the groups get larger. take an organized guild in a 20-man pain train, all with a 7% stats advantage fore example. almost all damage in WvW is aoe damage. even survivability is aoe (boon sharing).

MAGpie.7962:

This always struck me as a bit of a flawed philosophy. I am sure it is “intended” to be fair and balanced, its just not practically achievable do to the current design.

No, they have basically said since before release that WvW is not aimed to be a fair or balanced game-type. It is supposed to simulate a war after all, and wars are seldom fair ^^

mistsim.2748:

that’s where you misunderstand. the difference is amplified as the groups get larger. take an organized guild in a 20-man pain train, all with a 7% stats advantage fore example. almost all damage in WvW is aoe damage. even survivability is aoe (boon sharing).

Well, granted, that is a valid point about total damage output…. however, why would only one side run ascended stuff? You are suggesting that only one server in the fight will field players with ascended gear… That seems a bit odd at best. I think the numbers will be relative and you will find the averages the same.

Again, it will simply come down to zerg size and coverage… as always.

@ lordkrall: Yeah… its a game, not war, for one. If the intent was to make it unbalanced, why not just limit blue to 10 players per map, red to 30 and green to 100. Done. war simulated. Nah, effort was taken to make is balanced… well, as balanced as possible. Again, I do not feel that it was so much a design intent as a design result.

MAGpie.7962:

@ lordkrall: Yeah… its a game, not war, for one. If the intent was to make it unbalanced, why not just limit blue to 10 players per map, red to 30 and green to 100. Done. war simulated. Nah, effort was taken to make is balanced… well, as balanced as possible. Again, I do not feel that it was so much a design intent as a design result.

Because in a war all sides are still “allowed” to field the exact same amount of troops. Making something mechanically unbalanced would be rather silly after all, and why would anyone on the unlucky “10 man server” even bother playing?
With the current system it still happens, but it is still POSSIBLE to get as much people as the other side on the field.

lol, we are debating my opinion on your statement based on nothing more than “how I feel”… which is funnily in itself, but also not on the topic in discussion :P Related, yeah, but not on topic. Not gonna discuss it further, but like I said, I do agree that ascended gear probably won’t make too much of a difference.

this goes into the discussion i had with a guardian on our private forums recently. he’s a zerker running around with 20k health, and none of us could figure out how he got the numbers he quoted until he confirmed that all his laurels went into ascended trinkets and celestial ascended greatsword.

He’s got a difference of almost 4k HP compared to us, 20k with only food buffs to our 16-17. And his crit chance is higher thn anyone running exotics.

thats not 4 percent thats 3 to 4 thousand HP. thats an extra 1-4 hits that he can take before he’s down. Thats a BIG deal outside of the farming zerg.

And I’m still workin on Wup wup…

And people still saying its not going to be a big increase when armor hits the scene. I say thats already bull kitten and theres plenty of proof out there already.

Well, again, not saying it won’t be an increase, just saying, it will be on both sides of the fence… thus, won’t make a zerg on zerg difference. Well, not a big one that is.

It definitely is a huge power creep and it shoudln’t have been implemented in the first place. Anyone arguing that WvW is supposed to be imbalanced is just trolling in my humble opinion. You don’t advertise your game for being imbalanced. In it’s current implementation ascended gear is just a terrible addition to the game.

Elmo Benchwarmer.3025:

It definitely is a huge power creep and it shoudln’t have been implemented in the first place. Anyone arguing that WvW is supposed to be imbalanced is just trolling in my humble opinion. You don’t advertise your game for being imbalanced. In it’s current implementation ascended gear is just a terrible addition to the game.

And with this I agree 100%. Both statements.

My biggest concern is I don’t want to have to craft to 500. I am at 492 on my weapon smith and it has stayed there for the last 2 months and now the fact I am probably gonna have to do another profession to have armor has me dreading the day they release the new armor sets.

I am a WvWer, RPer and dungeon runner. I HATE crafting in games. Please, please please, Anet, Don’t make me feel forced to craft by making it a requirement to earn ascended armor. It goes against the play as you want mantra you yourselves made.

Elmo Benchwarmer.3025:

It definitely is a huge power creep and it shoudln’t have been implemented in the first place. Anyone arguing that WvW is supposed to be imbalanced is just trolling in my humble opinion. You don’t advertise your game for being imbalanced. In it’s current implementation ascended gear is just a terrible addition to the game.

I think the point is that unless mapcap vs. mapcap vs. mapcap fights occur, where every single player on the map is fighting in one huge clusterkitten, WvW has no way of guaranteeing that a fight will be fair, remain fair, or even come out as expected because of innumerable factors.

• Server Z could show up randomly when X and Y are fighting.
• An arbitrary number of players may show up for one side or another, completely flipping a fight on its head.
• A lowbie can be downed and finished in an instant, completely reversing the flow of battle.
• Chokes and terrain are far more valuable than your gear; as such the randomness of who losses what boon (ie. stability) can change the flow of battle.
• Siege…
• Etc…

That isn’t to say that WvW, for some, would be better if it followed sPvP gear gap rules, but others prefer it to be as lax with the restrictions as possible and with that comes gear.

Come on people, use your brains for a second. Let me put this into perspective: 5% = 1 out of 20. If you assume the effects of stats scale linearly – they do for some stat combos but a bit better for most synergistic stat combos (vit/tough , pow/prec – prec/crit – pow/crit ) so might as well assume 10% increase. then 20 v 20 becomes 20 v 22 if one side has everyone totally decked out in ascended and the other in exotics.

Obviously build/profession composition makes more than a 10% difference – and I challenge you to try this if you don’t believe it – choose any build and look at a group of 10 people running the same build in exotics vs a group of 10 running a more balanced approach in greens. The group in greens will win 100% of the time.

lordkrall.7241:

Ascended gear will not make you win a fight unless you were good enough to win it anyway.
The extra stats (5% or something like that) won’t really make much of a difference.

Another thing to keep in mind is that WvW was never meant to be fair or balanced.

the 5% is inaccurate. with full ascended armor it’ll be closer to 20% (and on top of that will be the base defense increase making exo weapons do even less damage)

WvWvW is balanced in the sense that each server has to deal with the same imbalances.

And while a minor stat increases may be noticeable for an individual player, and individual player is not noticeable in WvW. And for the most part, the distribution of ascended gear should be about the same across servers, so the server you’re fighting most likely has the same amount of people decked in ascended.

Ascended gear comes into play on the micro level, but WvWvW plays on a macro level.

So, in a 1v1, you could theoretically trace a loss to someone being in ascended gear. But in the big picture of WvWvW your little 1v1 battle, or even small group battle, is insigificant.

Protoavis.9107:

lordkrall.7241:

Ascended gear will not make you win a fight unless you were good enough to win it anyway.
The extra stats (5% or something like that) won’t really make much of a difference.

Another thing to keep in mind is that WvW was never meant to be fair or balanced.

the 5% is inaccurate. with full ascended armor it’ll be closer to 20% (and on top of that will be the base defense increase making exo weapons do even less damage)

Thank you for an exercise in sanity.

My biggest grief with this whole situation is and has been how much effort it took to gear out all the toons I use in this game. I have every class geared and most with exotic PVT/Knights gear. We have NO PVT crafting options and it hurts my head to think I’m going to need to get 500 in all weapons and armor crafts to regear my characters for optimal play.

Badges are fine. I can farm those every day. laurels are grind fest and annoying, as is crafting in general—especially with the once a day restrictions in place. And we can’t just up and buy any of this stuff either with the restrictions all ascended has atm.

If this isn’t grind I don’t know what word would better define it. bullkitten?

mistsim.2748:

is anyone else really concerned about ascended stats snowball when the armor comes out? i bought this game for hardcore pvp/WvW, it’s all that ive been doing, and im very concerned. this new level of grind will be introduced, fine. but will we get the opportunity to get the armor in WvW from killing people and taking objectives?

stats difference between exo and ascended will be significant…if it’s significant enough, i dont see myself playing this game in the future unless all the ascended gear is accessible through pvp in some way.

Blobbing is not hard core and you wont notice the difference in your blob of 70 #1 spammers.

5% difference is important. Basically is like having some free traits.

Compared to all exotics VS all ascended , the final stat difference will reach a maximum gain of 17%

Melody Cross.8465:

this goes into the discussion i had with a guardian on our private forums recently. he’s a zerker running around with 20k health, and none of us could figure out how he got the numbers he quoted until he confirmed that all his laurels went into ascended trinkets and celestial ascended greatsword.

He’s got a difference of almost 4k HP compared to us, 20k with only food buffs to our 16-17. And his crit chance is higher thn anyone running exotics.

thats not 4 percent thats 3 to 4 thousand HP. thats an extra 1-4 hits that he can take before he’s down. Thats a BIG deal outside of the farming zerg.

And I’m still workin on Wup wup…

And people still saying its not going to be a big increase when armor hits the scene. I say thats already bull kitten and theres plenty of proof out there already.

If he’s running zerker gear, it doesn’t matter if he’s using ascended or not, You don’t get extra vitality from exotic zerker vs ascended zerker.

Now he could be using some celestial gear, that’s perfectly possible.. and will increase his HP, which you could do also, But it won’t make up for 4k you’re talking about.

Nuzt.7894:

The issue I have Ascended gear is Laurels, there is far to many currencies in GW2. I hate that I’m forced to do Dailies/Monthlies in order to get Laurels which are needed to gear up, I just want to WvW without feeling like I have to complete some random crap I have no interest in doing.

Badges of Honor are the WvW currency and have been from day 1, why does Anet feel we need to earn more types of currencies for the aspect of the game that we enjoy ? Make Acsended cost a repulsive amount of Badges for all I care just get rid of the Laurel cost.

I was too lazy to read through the rest of the posts on this thread but I agree with this.
There are way too many kitten currencies in this game, it’s really unnecessary. Karma, honor, gold, glory, good enough. We don’t need any more than those ones right there. Although you can earn laurels from WvW by doing dailies, which usually consist of gathering defending, or killing other players, it’s still a pain to have to need that currency in order to get some ascended items.

Xsorus.2507:

Melody Cross.8465:

this goes into the discussion i had with a guardian on our private forums recently. he’s a zerker running around with 20k health, and none of us could figure out how he got the numbers he quoted until he confirmed that all his laurels went into ascended trinkets and celestial ascended greatsword.

He’s got a difference of almost 4k HP compared to us, 20k with only food buffs to our 16-17. And his crit chance is higher thn anyone running exotics.

thats not 4 percent thats 3 to 4 thousand HP. thats an extra 1-4 hits that he can take before he’s down. Thats a BIG deal outside of the farming zerg.

And I’m still workin on Wup wup…

And people still saying its not going to be a big increase when armor hits the scene. I say thats already bull kitten and theres plenty of proof out there already.

If he’s running zerker gear, it doesn’t matter if he’s using ascended or not, You don’t get extra vitality from exotic zerker vs ascended zerker.

Now he could be using some celestial gear, that’s perfectly possible.. and will increase his HP, which you could do also, But it won’t make up for 4k you’re talking about.

The trinkets were’t zerker, nor the GS ans mentioned…

I believe the guardian in question when he said he has 20k health. He had no reason to lie about his build, armor or anything else. i know the best we could do to duplicate without ascended gears was almost 17k. Almost.

Ascended is only gonna make a difference in a very close fight. And even then, a dodge at the right time is far mor significant.

Man i get so sick of the wvw was never meant to be balanced bullkitten..

No, the game meant to be balanced, but we don’t really care or have enough cash miked from our community to get people to work on it. Or had time before game release to get the system checked, tested or immaginatively designed. so we came up with this carcas people still play with and hope to get the game working as intended future. But that would require someone going over the horribly written code and try CPR for a couple of years.
So we took the easy way out and came up with the statement “it never was meant to be balanced” so we don’t have to look at it again.

Sincerely yours,

Ncsoft’s accountant overseeing Anet’s expenses.

Melody Cross.8465:

Xsorus.2507:

Melody Cross.8465:

this goes into the discussion i had with a guardian on our private forums recently. he’s a zerker running around with 20k health, and none of us could figure out how he got the numbers he quoted until he confirmed that all his laurels went into ascended trinkets and celestial ascended greatsword.

He’s got a difference of almost 4k HP compared to us, 20k with only food buffs to our 16-17. And his crit chance is higher thn anyone running exotics.

thats not 4 percent thats 3 to 4 thousand HP. thats an extra 1-4 hits that he can take before he’s down. Thats a BIG deal outside of the farming zerg.

And I’m still workin on Wup wup…

And people still saying its not going to be a big increase when armor hits the scene. I say thats already bull kitten and theres plenty of proof out there already.

If he’s running zerker gear, it doesn’t matter if he’s using ascended or not, You don’t get extra vitality from exotic zerker vs ascended zerker.

Now he could be using some celestial gear, that’s perfectly possible.. and will increase his HP, which you could do also, But it won’t make up for 4k you’re talking about.

The trinkets were’t zerker, nor the GS ans mentioned…

I believe the guardian in question when he said he has 20k health. He had no reason to lie about his build, armor or anything else. i know the best we could do to duplicate without ascended gears was almost 17k. Almost.

The difference between Celestial Ascended and Exotic ascended is nothing, and by that i mean i could buy it right now, and it would increase nothing worthwhile in my build.

Most likely, the way he was getting the extra HP was Defense against guards, which would account for 2500 hp.

But the the difference between Ascended and Exotic will not ever be close to 3k or 4k hp with zerker/celestial type sets.

That’s just misinformation you’re spreading.

I’m not giving you his build Xsorus. Its server proprietary. Call me a liar all day long. Stop fishing.

Melody Cross.8465:

i’m not giving you his build Xsorus. its server proprietary. Stop fishing.

Considering i don’t have a guardian, I don’t care about his build

But you’re still spreading misinformation.

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

Man i get so sick of the wvw was never meant to be balanced bullkitten..

No, the game meant to be balanced, but we don’t really care or have enough cash miked from our community to get people to work on it. Or had time before game release to get the system checked, tested or immaginatively designed. so we came up with this carcas people still play with and hope to get the game working as intended future. But that would require someone going over the horribly written code and try CPR for a couple of years.
So we took the easy way out and came up with the statement “it never was meant to be balanced” so we don’t have to look at it again.

Sincerely yours,

Ncsoft’s accountant overseeing Anet’s expenses.

If WvW is balanced then why was sPvP watered down the way it was. To be super-balanced??

sPvP is the closest your going to get to balanced pvp. WvWvW is imbalanced inherently, because one night your server may field a huge population, and another night another server may field that huge population.

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

Man i get so sick of the wvw was never meant to be balanced bullkitten..

No, the game meant to be balanced, but we don’t really care or have enough cash miked from our community to get people to work on it. Or had time before game release to get the system checked, tested or immaginatively designed. so we came up with this carcas people still play with and hope to get the game working as intended future. But that would require someone going over the horribly written code and try CPR for a couple of years.
So we took the easy way out and came up with the statement “it never was meant to be balanced” so we don’t have to look at it again.

Sincerely yours,

Ncsoft’s accountant overseeing Anet’s expenses.

You clearly are new here. WvW was always discussed as unbalanced. That is fine.

As to the OP: I’m sure there will be a way to get everything you need in WvW. What people do not understand is that WvW may not always be the BEST place to get the mats. That is perfectly fine. You’ll eventually earn the same stuff just by playing WvW.

style.6173:

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

Man i get so sick of the wvw was never meant to be balanced bullkitten..

No, the game meant to be balanced, but we don’t really care or have enough cash miked from our community to get people to work on it. Or had time before game release to get the system checked, tested or immaginatively designed. so we came up with this carcas people still play with and hope to get the game working as intended future. But that would require someone going over the horribly written code and try CPR for a couple of years.
So we took the easy way out and came up with the statement “it never was meant to be balanced” so we don’t have to look at it again.

Sincerely yours,

Ncsoft’s accountant overseeing Anet’s expenses.

You clearly are new here. WvW was always discussed as unbalanced. That is fine.

As to the OP: I’m sure there will be a way to get everything you need in WvW. What people do not understand is that WvW may not always be the BEST place to get the mats. That is perfectly fine. You’ll eventually earn the same stuff just by playing WvW.

There is a world of difference between “discussed” and “meant”.
Just sayin.

And yes, there is. It was slow, but I got everything I needed for 3 weapons, and I have enough for a 4th. Debating on putting that off till armour though. All from WvW.

Melody Cross.8465:

this goes into the discussion i had with a guardian on our private forums recently. he’s a zerker running around with 20k health, and none of us could figure out how he got the numbers he quoted until he confirmed that all his laurels went into ascended trinkets and celestial ascended greatsword.

He’s got a difference of almost 4k HP compared to us, 20k with only food buffs to our 16-17. And his crit chance is higher thn anyone running exotics.

I think you need to clarify what you’re saying/claiming. You’re describing this guy as a “zerker”, but in the next sentence say he’s using a Celestial (not Berserker) greatsword.

A Wupwup Claymore gives 40 more HP than a Crystal Guardian (10g).

The maximum-possible HP gain from Exotic to Ascended (Shaman Weapon + Soldier Trinkets) is 1300. Vitality infusions could provide another 20 Vitality, or 200 more hp, for a grand total of 1500.

I thought this sounded familiar, so I found the thread on our forum. The 20k hp likely includes end-of-week Power of the Mists bonuses, which can give a 10% boost to max hp.

If you look at the last post in that thread, somebody else posts a full gw2skills link to his (similar) build, which has 17025 hp (before Applied Fortitude or Power of the Mists).

The unfortunate part for me is that although I mostly just main 2-3 characters now, with 1 as primary focus… that’s still 7 sets of gear….. If I was rich, I could make them all weapons, which thankfully IS an option, and it’s not purely timegated. But my other toons will most likely never get ascended weapons and armor.