The thing that I’m the most pissed at is that it would have been really simple to make this awesome.
Ascended: Stats the same as exotic. Infusion slot instead of a gem slot. Infusions give effects, not stats. Like “Deal moderate damage to nearby foes when you reach 50% hp”, “20% faster elite skill recharge” or “Burst skill deals 20% more damage. Warrior only.” All would be unique so that you couldn’t stack for example stupid elite skill recharge or deal humonkittenage when you reach 50% hp.
I would be ok if in practice those effects usually were better then the stat boost you traded them for, but this “like your old stuff, but better”-thingy is kitten.
At least they need to downscale the stats for world PVE and old dungeons (so that your stats are scaled to exotic 80 gear in the lvl 80 dungeons and so on).