Guild Wars 2

This may be a troll thread, but doesn’t the fact that things like “optimal build” and “substandard build” point out a very deep flaw in game design? I mean, shouldn’t GW2 have a greater build diversity instead of everyone sort of settling on one build per class? Why can’t we have a condition built warrior that deals devastating stacks of bleeding?

That being said, I usually use a greatsword on my gaurdian. I use scepter/torch when I need ranged dps, but usually use a staff for speed boosts and buffs.

Do what I do when I feel like fighting Kholer, include it in the lfg description. Something along the lines of “no skipping enemies” and “not a speed run”. It may take longer to find like minded people, but once you do, you may enjoy it better.

Ideally, arenanet would fix the dungeon bugs, and I’ve come across people who don’t run a path, not because it’s bugged, but because they can’t do a speed run. I could come up with a whole list of things I’d like to change in dungeons, but that’s besides the point of my original post.
What I’m trying to get across, will there be an alternative method to get ascended gear for those of us who prefer running dungeons to crafting. I simply tried to provide some solutions I view as viable options to this issue I’m having.

I’m not sure how to move the thread there, and I wouldn’t want to double post.
Another idea would be to award something like a path token. So you get a token for completing a dungeon path, then when you have enough tokens from all 3 paths of a dungeon, you can toss them into the mystic forge along with a piece of dungeon armor of that dungeon for an ascended piece. This would kill two birds with one stone, in that it would provide people an alternate route to ascended, as well as promoting the dungeon paths no one wants to run. How often do you see someone running Path 2 of AC as compared to Path 3 these days?

So I worked to get full dungeon gear for my avatars, I have 3 full sets of AC, and 2 full sets of COF which I considered top of the line. Now I see people can craft ascended gear, so my dungeon gear will fall behind it. My question is, will crafting ascended items make my current gear obsolete in terms of stats? If so, will there be something to abate this concern? I’m thinking either offering ascended dungeon items at a higher dungeon token rate, or earning armor/weapon upgrades to raise the stats of what I already have to something on par with ascended in the same manner you can apply different skins to items.
I wasn’t sure if this belonged here or under crafting and any feedback will be greatly appreciated since I love this game.