Guild Wars 2

The problem stems from the fact that they don’t ever balance with power in mind they always balance for a condi/power build in mind…. They need to rebalance stats as a whole and combine some.

Power+Condition damage = Offensive power
Vitality+Toughness = Defensive power
Healing+ Concentration= Supportive power
Ferocity+Expertise = Offensive intensity

This would require them to rebalance all of the stuff and make a bunch of gear sets redundant but really this is fixed simply by allowing the redundant sets a 1 time only “select stats” kinda like they did with the older item sets or simply by giving the sets different values of each.

I’ll give a example for 2 weapon types below with a stat allocation of 500 *this is just a example.

Berserker equivalent
350 offensive power
150 offensive intensity

valkyrie equivalent
200 offensive power
150 offensive intensity
150 defensive power

These are just examples and I’ll give more realistic numbers down lower.

This more simplified stat system wouldn’t only be limited to pve and wvw it would also make structured pvp a bit more accessable due to simplifying the stats for a bit more ease of understanding and balance….

Fewer stats = less tuning nobs = easier to balance…. The challenge would be the initial leap to rebalance the scaling numbers for everything as the base numbers would stay static for the most part… The only things I would really see changing are the base condition numbers and the power scaling for direct damage skills…. The healing scaling would stay roughly the same as supportive power doesn’t really change vs the current support setup besides having the boon duration baked in.

Stat allocation for gear could have a very simple 5000 budget spread across the gear.

1000 weapon
500 per ring
300 per accessory
250 backpack
450 head/Gloves/Boots
600 Chest/Legs
500 Shoulders

Anyway I’m sleepy now and heading to bed.

The holo will never really have a good offhand for power builds with how the system works now. You can say that the holoforge is a tie in to help with that but it’s the class mechanic which every class gets with the elite specialization. That should honestly be enough having a unique class mechanic change along with the heal/utility/elite skills being tied to it…. Them having the weapons tied to them as well is just going to end up making the game feel very bland as time goes on.

Honestly the game would feel more fluid if they would just tie the heal/utility/elite skill to the elite specialization and make it so you must fully train to allow the use of the weapon even if the specialization wasn’t chosen.

This is a issue that is going to get worse as time goes on and honestly I think the devs really need to take a long hard look at how elite specs are handled in the future.

Anyone else feeling this way ?

Honestly I think the damage is fine… The 5 target limit on the other hand I think may need to be dropped to 3 considering high damage on a melee is fine but giving them big aoe on the skills as well is a bit excessive.

I feel like they thought the damage was going to be so high that the mobility wouldn’t be needed then they just forgot to add the damage. Even the burst feels like a complete joke when it crits as full zerker I think a full condi build crits harder than that thing.

4.5k crit when you’re in full glass cannon mode is a complete joke.

On SB I mean like no matter how you build it the damage seems to be severely lacking in comparison to the other classes. Also for 1/4 second autos it feels like the after cast makes them 1/2 second autos.

Anyone else feeling this way ?

It’s up to 226 listed…. Also you people are looking at the api which hasn’t updated or something because inside of the game if you open the trading post there’s only 226 listed to sell and a stupid amount of buy orders.

Like don’t look through the api log in and look.

there’s around 4k buyorders but only 173 listed on the trading post currently in game.

Seriously this needs to drop from more sources than the mystic toilet. The bags they come from is under .01% drop rate it seems…..

Any proof needed is just a simple glace at the trading post there’s currently 173 TOTAL listed to sell and they are at extreme bloated prices.

I wouldn’t want a traditional weapon switch on the engie as it would feel like the class is watered down. What I want is this.

Limit it to 1 device and weapon kit equip at a time mortar is except from this. up the damage and effect of all weapon/device kits to feel more like primary weapons but the kits now incur a 10 second cooldown once they are dropped.

This would make the kits feel more like unique weapons to the engineer than a quick equip spam and unequip that they currently are.

Arantheal I actually agree with you on the kits getting a cooldown thing I think they need to buff kits to be more like a normal weapon and have a 10 second cooldown when you decide to drop them. I think they need to limit it to 1 device kit and 1 weapon kit as well while buffing a few of the utility skills so that people get more options opened up to them instead of being all kits all the time.

It would make it feel more like the engineer has access to more weapons while also keeping the aesthetics of the class intact since the kits are unique to the engie.

The damage isn’t all that bad though I find some of the traits to be lackluster and the gyros to be kinda bleh as well. I posted some suggestions in the official suggestion thread and here’s what I say about the hammer.

The 10% damage from the gm traits needs to be baked into the weapon itself and the gm needs to be changed to something more useful I gave a suggestion in the other thread this is mainly about hammer though so leaving it out. The aftercast needs to be looked into as most of the skills have horrid aftercasts.

The other thing relating to damage is this the no.4 needs to lose around 10% damage but I suggest moving that 10% damage to the no.2 and also syncing the block duration for the no.4 to the animation of the skill. Reduce the range on the no.5 to 600 yards but up the stun duration to 1.75 seconds as the current 1200 range is a bit… excessive for how short the stun is.

After playing more with the scraper I’ve changed my mind on some things and have some new feedback on the weapon, gyros and traits.

I’ll start with the traits since some of the other suggestions I have won’t make sense unless I explain these first.

Stabilization core – This trait is made redundant with another change I have to suggest. I suggest adding a new major in it’s place that allows function gyro to be used on yourself when you get downed as long as it’s not on cooldown.

For Perfectly Weighted I suggest baking the 10% damage directly into the hammer and instead adding a major that buffs gyros to be a bit more usable. The trait would give gyros +25% health passivly but also give you and the gyro 2 stacks of stability for 5 seconds on a 10 second cooldown.

As for the hammer I have some suggestions to it since a bunch of people don’t like the damage or after casts. The damage is assuming you go with the Perfectly Weighted change and up the damage by 10% across the skills.

Reduce the after cast on the no.1 chain a little bit to smooth it out. The 10% damage being baked into the hammer removes the reason to up it’s damage further.

Make the no.4 a more defensive use ability that is mainly used for defense or vulnerability. Move 10% of it’s damage over to electro whirl no.2. Also sync the block duration to the animation.

The no.3 needs to have the delay between jumps lowered a tiny bit and the 2nd jump needs some smoothing to make sure it lands.

Thunder clap has the most changes I could suggest I think. The damage is fine as is but the stun is to short. My suggestion here is to raise the stun to 2 seconds flat so that it’s 2.25 seconds with the gm. Lower the cast range from 1200 to 600 and raise the cooldown from 24 to 25.

The function gyro I keep all my previous statements. It needs more functions and you should be able to choose how it’s used. It should have a offensive , supportive and defensive function. Supportive as in activating objects that you can interact with, Defensive as in able to rez you or team mates this one is added in my suggestions and the ability to do a little bit of damage and daze a target. This would make you have to think how you wanna use your function gyro.

As for the rest of the gyros I think they just need a 15-20% health boost base and AI needs to be changed so that they actually follow and keep up with you instead of falling behind and having odd pathing. Most of them have their uses but they are just not that useful due to buggy pathing and low health atm.

The scrapper I like the general feel but I have some small problems with it and the abilities associated with it.

Hammer no.1 feels good smooth scales decent but the after cast feels a little to long. The swing itself is around 1/2 a second and the after cast feels nearly the same I would recommend dropping it by around .1 seconds to see how it feels at that point.

electro whirl feels good in every regard but the distortion caused by the animation makes it hard to see what’s going on around you while it’s active. Does good damage and cd and the reflect is useful though so I don’t mind this.

Rocket charge feels really clunky…. like REALLY the 2nd hit always misses even on stationary targets. The damage feels very very low because of this. The animation also feels very jerky I would have rather had what look like rocket on the hammer making you do the jumps not a ton of rifle jumps back to back. The damage should be fine once the 2nd hit miss issues fixed though.

Shock shield… Honestly nothing to say about it good scaling blocks projectiles from the front and has a modest cooldown all around solid skill. All I could see it doing is making the block range a little wider not by much

Thunderclap awesome skill I especially love it paired with hammer no.2 the only problem I’m finding with it is the cooldown is really long for what duration the stun is 1.25 sec on a 24 sec cd

The gyros. This is going to be the hard to explain one but I’ll do my best.

Medical gyro – This is a good idea but honestly feels lacking still. I would recommend making it remove a condition per pulse or just pulse heal for more currently I prefer elixirh and heal turret over it.

Blast gyro – I don’t care for it.. The cooldown is long the damage is low and the only thing it does is a knockback which honestly feels lackluster for the slot you’re using. Defensive elixirs or a kit give more utility and in some cases more damage. The only suggestion I have here is up the damage and lower the cd by 5 seconds. Also raise the health by a bit since it gets evaporated by aoe in most cases.

Bulwark gyro – I’m loving this skill but it’s health feels a little to low even in a 1v1. I would suggest raising the health by around 20-25% and that’s it. The toolbelt skill for it I love and I don’t think it needs to be looked at to much beyond that.

Purge gyro – Combine this into the healing gyro and make something in it’s place like a condition gyro that does melee hits and inflicts bleeding or a flashing gyro which pulses blind or something. This gyro feels really lackluster especially if you take the alchemy trait line.

Shreader gyro – I love how this is a whirl finisher but the fact it’s stationary and low health really needs to be looked at especially when the cooldown is 30 seconds. My suggestion is lower the cooldown to 25 seconds and up the power scaling a little. The toolbelt skill outshines the current utility skill.

Sneak gyro – Found this useless in 9/10 situations.. The 1 situation I found it useful was ignoring mobs in some areas since they don’t seem to aggro onto the gyro. Though this could be a bug… If it’s a bug don’t fix it because honestly it’s the only use I have found for this.

Function gyro – I don’t like it…. It dies instantly in pvp and in pve I’ve yet to find a real use for it besides rezzing the occasional downed player. I would honestly suggest adding some more functions so this feels more useful as a talent such as if used on a enemy tazes the target dealing a damage and dazing them for 3 second or when used on a ally it functions like aegis but blocks 3 attacks attack. Just general little functions that have tactical uses I think would be better then stomp/rez only. I would keep the cooldown as 30 seconds if you go with that suggestion. If not I suggest lowering the cooldown to 20 seconds and just raising the health by around 50%.

On to the talents I’ll only name the ones I feel need a buff or feel like a trap.

Stabilization Core – feels bad due to not being able to trigger it in pve and in pvp it’s only triggered stomping. The suggestion I gave to giving the function gyro more functions would fix this.

Perfectly Weighted – I feel like the other 2 grand masters outshine this. I suggest raising the duration of the stability to 2 stacks at 6 seconds and adding 2 stacks of might as well while upping the cd to 10 seconds.

Anyway those are my suggestions after playing around with the spec and as I said I love it so far it just needs some polish and function gyro needs to be more useful.

The no.2 is fine I doulble hit with it… Soon as I shoot and I see the damage I pop it again for a 2nd hit. I usually run knights builds with the flame thrower except pve which is full zerk and honestly I would love it if they just removed the burn from auto attack and put it on the no.2 and moved like 10% of the damage from no.2 to no.1

But I’m talking about a more pratical thing here which is just moving the burn to the start of the cast because in pvp stopping your jet due to retal or needing to cast another ability hurts your damage a lot. Even full power based builds need that damage provided by the burn to keep up with other weapons.

Bring back our last 4% you gave us 11% the other day but we’re still missing 4% the old talent was 15% damage not 11%.

Besides that move the burn from the end of the channel to the start of the channel. Put a ICD on it that is as long as the channel to prevent stop/start action spam. This would allow the FT to keep up with other weapons auto attack damage while also allowing us to break the channel for skills without losing as much damage as breaking before applying the burn.

I still say just reduce the cost at checkout if the player currently owns the base game… Just have them sign on and reduce the price by around 10 bucks so it would be 39.99 standard, 64.99 deluxe , 89.99 for ultimate. It’s not a huge discount but would have made a hell of a lot more sense then the current prices.

Since so many people are salty about the price of the expansion why not give a 10 dollar discount at checkout for anyone who already owns the base game… If not that give 2 seperate keys 1 for the base game and 1 for hots which they can give to a friend if they already have the base game.

I think option 2 would be best since they could give the 2nd key to a friend to get them interested in the game and if they bought they would get a key to give to a friend and so on it would attract more to the game.

Most of the complaints I’ve seen are from more recent players who bought the game on sell because the faq said you must own the base game to be able to get hots and now it’s included with hots. If some kinda discount was given or a 2nd key was given I don’t think there would be as much of a outcry.

I’m not siding with either one because I see a valid argument for both sides

The difference you’re seeing as I said is the stat power difference not the base weapon damage difference. The white-exotic the base damage scales up but from exotic to ascended it stays the same. I think once the patch goes live which will up the gap by 10% you’ll be able to see it better than currently since 5% as I mentioned is very hard to notice.

The difference between exotic and ascended isn’t there. Take off all of your gear/traits and only use the weapon you’ll see what I mean the damage doesn’t change between those 2 qualities it’s capped at exotic. I’ll use the flamethrower as a example 0 traits/0 gear outside of the weapon.

The exotic rifle with force/accuracy was 1240 damage to the dummy.
The ascended weapon was 1264 damage ot the dummy

The only thing that changed the number was the power difference the tooltip was 100% different from those numbers. The base damage of the kits is capped at exotic level if it was ascended it would have been around 1400-1500 due to the 5% base weapon damage difference.

edit
What I’m getting at is the base weapon damage not the power/precision/toughness or sigils. The base weapon damage doesn’t change between exotic to ascended they stay at exotic levels. When the power gap grows to 10% it’s going to be really noticeable unless they change something. The weapon power is around 969 on both exotic and ascended.

I’m not reading based on tooltips I’m going based on target dummy damage taken.

If I was going on tooltips I would say deadly mixtures +15% damage actually lowered damage which currently the tooltip is lower with the trait than without.

edit
That guys test was done on mobs where the damage can crit and fluctuate. Attacking dummies/boxes and whatnot the damage is always the same and much easier to tell if it changes or not.

I should have mentioned this as well I took off EVERYTHING including talents but the weapon to try this. I also did like the guy and tried vs normal mobs the only real noticeable factor was the power/precision/ferosity on the weapon changing the weapon damage on the kits is set at a flat number that doesn’t change. If they changed it to change based on weapon then it’s currently not working.

There’s quiet a few things that are completely absent and we won’t know if it’s baseline or just flat out deleted till next week.

digitalruse.9085:

Kits were updated a while back to get the stats and damage from the weapon you had equipped, so we should be okay still after this change.

They updated but apparently lied in the notes because I just tried a white/blue/green/yellow/gold/pink in that order. The kit damage only went up based on the power stat that was on the weapon I used. The base damage of the kits is still fixed. The only change they added is it benefits sigils and stats while the weapon damage is fixed.

Currently kit damage is that of a exotic weapon and currently ascended is only 5% above. With the ascended changes of making the gap 10% this is going to be noticeable. Will kits finally scale based on equip weapon so they get ascended damage to are will they be subpar?

The other concern is for deadly mixture for those who use power flamethrower builds did this trait just become baseline or get completely removed thus giving pflamer builds -15% base damage which was noticeable?

The concern for the elixir kit there’s no mention of the range being increased to 1200 but the trait is missing meaning it’s going to be 900. Deadly mixture worked on the elixir gun to and I don’t wanna leave this out either will the +15% base damage be baseline for it or completely removed?

And on a side note… Grenades and mortor no.1 targer and be auto PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE… I’ve already went through 2 mice because of having to click and wearing out the button since launch.

TL;DR
Ascended gap is being changed from 5% to 10% and kits may become crap once you get ascended.

Leaving out grand master traits is kinda lackluster since some of the necro grand masters suck… Mainly our minor for spite…..

Grand master minor trait… Touch of agony deal 10 damage per hit +.02 damage per power capped at 60 damage to target foe on hit. Procs on all direct damage hits and is not affected by armor functions like vampiric but does NOT heal you

adept death magic minor trait…. Deathly invigoration gain 5 seconds of vigor when something dies near you 15 second cooldown.

Soul reaping combine path of midnight and vital persistance make into a master trait…. Make a new adept major trait called dark renewal…. Allow healing while in death shroud.

Change blood to power grand master blood trait from +5% damage above 90% health to +5% damage while the target is bleeding.

adept blood magic major mark of evasion changed to chilling retreat…. Chills targets around you 350 range for 3 seconds on dodge.

Blood adept combo Vampiric precision and bloodthirst combined and moved to master tier. New major trait Order of the vampire You and allies range siphon 30 health on hit The bloodthirst effect only affects you This would give the necromancer some more group utility like the warriors 170 power, eles healing , rangers 170 precision. This also goes along with the lore from guild wars 1.

I finished frostfang the other day after farming mats sine launch…. Now I’m just saving mats so I can build the new legendary axe when it comes out.

The only really good thing about necros is the aesthetic and condition builds really… Everything the necromancer can do other classes can do better…. Except heavy condition pressure which the necros have a bit better time of due to epidemic and terror.

Support wise necromancers don’t really rely on healing but more on aoe conditions chill/cripple, weakness so that other players take less damage or are able to get away… They do have some moderate heals but the scaling with healing power is somewhat low.

Mobility wise we’re like a snapping turtle…. We have no real mobility…. We do scare people away or do moderate damage in the form of a snap but outside of that there’s not much going for us in the mobility department… Only class with absolute 0 ways to get vigor outside of relying on other classes.

We can pull of hybrid builds really well which is good but it feels kinda odd in some aspects…. The builds are a hit or miss with people… either you’ll love it or hate it…..

My suggestion is just level a necro regardless you’ll find some way to play them that you’ll find fun… Honestly I love mobility but I just like the necro because how dynamic you can make them…. I run a axe/focus power based build that has good survival because of my setup… It’s flexible enough that I can switch to a power staff or well build and have moderate group support due to the utility setup I use….

Putting doom back to a flat 1 second fear and making terror not have the +50% damage on conditioned foes should be enough of a fix…

I just wish they would have put a more spite like trait in the grand master slot…. Honestly Dhuum fire feels meh for power and kinda meh in general… I would have rather had a flat damage on hit proc or something like barbs/soul barbs from gw1….. Hell a power scaling skill would have fit the tree more…

Soul barbs
10 damage +.02 per power caps at 60 damage on hit… Would take exactly 2500 power to hit the cap…. But most see this as a meh they think necromancers are 100% condition based and shouldn’t have any direct damage toys.

If anything it should scale with power for the damage or healing power for the heal you get from it not both that would be op as hell

NeXeD it is going to be on a thief venom and mesmer scepter no.2 from the sounds of it… I was just saying for us necromancers it’s going to only be on our DS no.5

It’s going to be a death shroud only condition by the sounds of it…. On the no.5 which we all know will have a minimum of a 60 second cooldown since it doubles as a cc.

I would kill for a tooth of frostfang… I have gold saving issues so all I have are my 3 gifts and no precurser….

I farmed the event for more time then I care to count and didn’t get anything besides a few settlers items and a wind rider.

Aeonblade.8709:

Most people just quit, and it really doesn’t do any good if Anet doesn’t know why they left.

I vote they email every player a optional survey of the following questions..

Are you pleased with the balance of the game ? 1-5
*small dialog box of what you find imbalanced

Are you satisfied with the amount of content ? 1-5
small box of what you find lacking

Are you happy with the current state of the game ? 1-5
box of why you’re happy or not happy

Are you still playing ? yes/no

What would it take to make you play again?
dialog box for what would bring you back

final dialog box for additional feedback

Right now the bad is still being weeded out…. Like any mmo there’s going to be a very large number of people to jump ship after awhile because well.. It’s not a wow killer like they hoped…I think the right term would be bandwagoners.

The games getting close to the point that the community isn’t going to fluctuate that much more… Though there are some issues that threaten to chase away some of the people who want to stay and play…. The lack of new armors/weapons that get added to dungeons and stuff and the RNG box stuff seems to be a major hot button… The only new skins are coming through the gem shop so there’s 0 real working for the skins you want it’s all luck or cash.

Most people I know really wanted a system like gw1 had where there’s a few dungeon specific skins that you can only get as drops in the dungeon not dungeon token stufkittenda like guild wars 1 had. The other main thing is elite armor like gw1 had… You had the basic stuff then stuff that was a bit harder to craft but looked really really nice… Dungeon armor is ok but elite armor would be crafted..

Anyways The community wont get much smaller anytime soon it’s going to stay about as is for at least another 2-3 years before it gets smaller… Gw1 did the same thing but the community got small around 1 year after factions launched just to double when nightfall came out.

I’ve been around since the launch of gw2 and have no intention of stopping unless they do something really stupid.. You make it sound like they lost 3/4 of the community with the way you talk but they have only lost at tops 1/4 of the community… The base that is here now are the ones who will be playing for awhile longer.. Some will take breaks but the’ll come back it’s just like people do with any mmo… Play then break between patches.

Also most of the 3 million didn’t come from gw1… Only a few hundred thousand came from gw1 and I see a ton of gwamm players in gw2 still so if they lost them they have a funny way of staying lost… Hell I’m one of the gwamm players. The end game topic gets old quickly…. What entertains you may not entertain others… that goes both ways. Just because you can’t find your end game doesn’t mean others aren’t finding theirs…. The game does have some problems with some of the support/controle/conditions though I admit that… Quiet a few other problems besides them as well but no game is without faults… The game will never just poof and go away gw1 is proof of that because after the initial 2 or so years of life the game community became a small dedicated community.

I remember multiple interviews where the crystal desert was brought up to colin johanson and he would say that it wasn’t going to make it into the initial launch but would be added in not long after launch… It’s near the 1 year mark and there’s 0 indication of this being added.

Most people just wanna go to cantha or elona but honestly I would like to see the crystal desert zones added to see what Kralkatorrik did to it since he flew off after the events of edge of destiny…. Anyways anyone else interested in this….. Also Fire isles ?

And to any dev that would respond to this… Were the crystal desert plans cut ?

You’ll get no official response from any dev on this because they don’t even know yet…

Honestly I would rather them all just have unique on hit effects like frostfang on a necromancer would do blue dragon claws for 1 and 2 and the no.3 would do a chill aura going out and blue teeth like a frost bite…

I don’t see anything happening with them for awhile though since they are more focused on rng boxes and semi focused on balance/bug fixes… Though every 1 bug they fix 2 get introduced.

I would rather have scythe for the necro… Only other weapon I would really like to see are tonfa..

Btw I guess necromancers must have loved this thread since it got necroed to hell lol.

The ambition and drive rolled over dead around the time they did halloween… It’s like the sheer mass of money they got from desperate players trying to get the skins went straight to their head and they can’t bring themselves to do anything without having a extreme version of gambling tacked onto it… To encourage this they lower drop rates to reduce gold in game so that players feel more inclined to spend cash to get gems to spend on the gambling… A bunch of people will lie to themselves using the argument “NUH UH” but anyone with a lick of sense knows it’s the truth… I still play the game despite how it’s turning out because I love the concepts and that’s what makes me so passionate about the game… The fact I keep seeing 1 badly implemented thing after another paired with the temporary content just saddens me to no end… All I can honestly ask myself is why are they letting it turn out this way… Why let down some of the older fans who have supported them since the launch of the original gw1.. Why let down so many fans in general ?

The holiday events to me make sense because the’ll come back every year but the living story being content that gets added for a month then removed… It’s like they build a extravagant mansion and show it off for a month…. Then they tear it down and build another 1 block over… Nothing is left but the memory of the other extravagant mansion…. That and the bitter memory of the gambling booth that was where the garage was supposed to be.

A true fix would be to give us spectral agony from gw1… It was a mursaat skill but lorewise it fits necromancers… It was nothing but a uber version of burning…. I could see that working for power or condition if they actually brought it in…

I think the closest thing we’ve seen to it in gw2 is agony in fractals…

I remember when gwen set everyone on fire and killed them back during the beta event for gw1… I miss little things like this….. I remember discovering that mursaat sucked to fight in general…. I remember the feeling when I first completed a droks run…. I remember my first set of 15k armor….

gw2 I remember the manifesto and all the hopes it brought…. Then I remember them being dashed against the rocks quiet splendidly a few months after launch.

Sylvari because they run like they have a stick shoved up their….. well I guess technicly they do have a stick there….

EXACTLY what I have been trying to say….. The 1.5k – 15k and obby armor all had the same exact stats no one had a advantage….

Right now this is for berserker items exotic to ascended comes out to be a bonus piece of gear stat wise… The gap is going to be larger as they finish adding armor and weapons to the game… The largest part of the gap will be the weapons due to the base damage boost.

67 power 31 precision 9% crit damage

That’s the total bonus of having full ascended over full exotic…. That’s roughly +1 exotic ring worth of stats… This is back/neck/rings/accessories total…. It’s a power imbalance that you can’t just put effort into getting it’s time gated meaning new players are going to be shafted and players who alternate between characters are going to be shafted…..

Viking Jorun.5413:

That’s because ascended gear was an afterthought when people were obtaining full exotics within a week of release. We needed some other type of progression, and they intentionally made it an 8% stat boost to give hardcore players just enough encouragement to go for it while not giving them much of an advantage over casuals. If you don’t like it, devote more time to the game. Simple as that.

And everyone had full armor in gw1 within 3 days of release so I see that as a moot point… The fact they said they want players to be at a equal footing fairly easy then they went out of their way just to add some way to give advantages to players who get past the time barrier is a bit of a low blow.

Also I would like to add the gear isn’t there for hardcore players to go for… If it was they would have just made you bust your kitten for it not sit on your hands and wait for another day to pass after 20 minutes of play. It’s just a tasteless way to keep players logging on for short amount of time every day… Look at guild wars 1 if you really wanted 15k armor or obby armor you could bust that out of the way if you were willing to put forth the effort… On 2 you’re limited by time alone… Put in all the effort you want you’re not going to make but a set bit of progression per day/week/month.

edit

I forgot to mention that the way they incorporated it means you’ll be lucky to gear 1 character fully in 4-5 months so it’s very alt unfriendly and doesn’t encourage building multiple sets for other builds. 8% isn’t a lot even 3% isn’t a lot but no matter what it’s a statistical difference which does mean it’s better.

Gotta love it….

Bright.9160:

Dub.1273:

Bright.9160:

Dub.1273:

Bright.9160:

Too bad Heavy Arah armor looks like absolute garbage on female characters.

Wazzawhat?
For humans and sylvari its the best armor set in the game.

Spiky metal bikini’s? Who in their right mind would wear such a travesty?

Me >.>

WTB pic of dub in a spiky metal bikini.

MY EYES!

Viking Jorun.5413:

The game is casual for the most part. You can get full exotics and not log in for months, log in for some WvW play later on and not be less effective against other players. Granted, ascended gear does give an 8% stat boost, but it’s not enough to actually make a huge difference. They did just as they have done in GW1, where it’s easy to hit high level and max out your gear, but the hardcore aspect involved is getting those aesthetic things, just like it was in Guild Wars 1..

You say it doesn’t make a huge difference but you do admit it makes a difference… You also go on to state it’s easy to hit max level and max out your gear when ascended is time gated off..

To much contradiction…. Guild wars 1 there was no stat difference at all in gear once you got top gear that was it….. It was all 100% looks not 92% looks 8% stats. What they are doing now is nothing at all like guild wars 1 because if it was I would be able to craft my ascended gear and be focusing on getting elite armors and weapon skins.

Sirius.4510:

Ursan.7846:

I’m going to bring up this quote from Anet Prez Mike O’Brien every time someone mentions “But GW2 was promised to have no grind!”

Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.

http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/21/guild-wars-2-interview-monetization/

GW1 and GW2 has always been about cosmetic grind. You’re fooling yourself if you assume otherwise.

Largely agreed, but there is some danger in the way the “best gear” thing is going. Level 80 exotics already take quite a while to get – not unreasonable, probably still within the reach of the average player, but they are expensive. Ascended equipment is even worse, and outright requires time commitment because of the laurel thing. So that’s dangerously close to the “grinding for more powerful gear” O’Brien was talking about already… it’s certainly not as bad as legendaries, but it is to the point you can only realistically get so many of them.

GW1 I’m with you 100% though – max gear was so cheap you really only needed to finish a campaign on a character and you could already buy a full set of it. The grinders were going after obsidian armor and chaos gloves, which didn’t do anything at all besides look “cool” (YMMV, mine certainly did).

15k armor took a bit longer to get then normal armor. Obby armor was ment as the super elite armor that took a massive time investment and massive amount of materials and money… It was only 15k per piece like the 15k elite armor but the ectos/obby shards costed around 1 million total.

Defensive abilities are those that do not trigger unless attacked or those that help to prevent damage…

Offensive abilities deal damage when used. Thorns in any game is considered a defensive stat do you know why ? It’s because it requires you to be hit. Just because it triggers damage doesn’t mean it’s offensive.

You mean 3k attack because 3k power is a bit of a stretch… I run a full power based build and have 2.4k power which translates to 3.2k attack…. Anyway retaliation isn’t a very offensive ability… Reflecting damage isn’t offensive that’s defensive because YOU have to take damage before it even triggers… If it was a passive aura that damaged targets around you that would be offensive…. Just because it scales on power doesn’t make it offensive.