Guild Wars 2

They WHAT? Geeze and I just bought HoT.

Shame on me, I guess.

In my opinion, GW2 has been on this road for a long time. The majority of the players seem to enjoy earning rewards for being bored (silverwastes, champ trains, dry top, etc.).

GW2 caters to them and to traders. Everyone else… not so much.

I don’t think the price is fine. The response of my guild (most of whom stopped playing six months ago or so) was"what’s up with the GW2 expansions? $50, ha ha ha … no."

You may be able to get $50 from existing players. You may be able to get $50 from new players. But you aren’t getting people back at that price. (at least in my limited experience)

Personally, I’m grateful that these changes were announced before I purchased HoT. Now I can sit back and see how it all plays out.

I’m going to guess that this change is to keep Necros from bypassing content to get to areas of the map they couldn’t otherwise reach.

Nokaru.7831:

Fay.2357:

The size of this particular step is relatively unimportant.

That’s your opinion, and you’re entitled to it. My opinion is that the size matters, and people should react in proportion with the change. The change is minor and insignificant.; it’s going to increase Ascended’s overall power by 1-2% over Exotic at the most.

Meanwhile, no one talks about a massive change to the game:

• Base attributes at level 80 now scale to 1000 instead of 926

That’s almost +400 more stats. For everyone. Someone in Exotic gear is going to be much more powerful after the patch than they were before. Meanwhile, Ascended Shoulders are gaining something like +2 to all stats. Which change do you think is actually noticeable and significant?

The important part is the direction of this step, because one step follows another.

Ah, the slippery-slope fallacy. You have to demonstrate this hypotentical thing will exist before concluding it’s a problem

You can be upset with the direction without falling into a slippery-slope fallacy. They increased the disparity between ascended gear and exotic gear. That bothers me. Ascended gear bothers me. At first, I figured they would make ascended gear easier to obtain over time. Let the grinders grind for gear first, then let the rest of us catch up.

But that’s not what’s happened. And instead of minimizing the importance of Ascended gear they are increasing it.

The problem isn’t that they increased the stat difference from 5-10%. The problem is that they thought it was a good idea.

It’s clearly not a tread mill. But, making ascended gear more powerful means that you will be at a greater disadvantage using exotic gear. Ascended gear is difficult to obtain, so it will be more difficult to switch up your build.

Ok. Where is the point where ascended gear breaks anything?

Not 5%, not 10%… is 50% ok?

The thing is ANY numerical advantage makes a difference at the margins. There will always be someone that you could beat on an equal footing but you lose because they have a stats advantage.

There will always be someone that could beat you on an equal footing, but you win because of a stats advantage.

Stat advantages in PvP suck.

If I follow the ascended defender argument, it use to be that you don’t need it so the grind is ok. Now that it’s buffered enough to be more necessary, the argument is that you already have it.

News flash, I don’t have it because you said I didn’t need it.

lordkrall.7241:

DJRiful.3749:

I find that GW2 is a much more expensive game than a sub base game. That money can get you 2 months sub and game items are not limited to real life money even if it is not pay 2 win items.

I prefer sub base game because I can get all the items I wanted without paying $20 for one piece and $20 for another piece. That is equivalent to 4 mths of sub.

So you prefer being forced to pay in order to even login over being able to CHOOSE to pay for something?

It is of course also worth pointing out that every single thing in the gem store can be obtained 100% free by converting in-game gold to gems.

From a fundamentally selfish point of view, of course he would. Having made the decision to spend, for example, $20 on gems each month, of course he would prefer to spend $15.99 a month on a subscription instead. He’d be saving $4.

Of course, this ignores the fact that there are some people who choose not to spend $20 a month, or who choose to spend less than $15.99 per month. Those people prefer to have a choice.

Personally, I see the changes in prices for skins (Lord Faren’s Rapier for 500, Caithe’s Bloom Dagger for 600) as being indicative of ArenaNet working to determine the optimal price for these items.

Edit: But I think it’s perfectly valid for someone to come to the forums and tell ANet that, for them, the prices of the skins is too much.

I agree that ideally retaliation would direct a percentage of the damage delivered back.

None of the decisions were “arbitrary” in the sense that everything has a reason.

The 25 stack cap was selected because of performance implications. More than 25 stacks was too large a load on the server.

However, the game has been balanced around 25 stacks (more or less). The 1% increased damage on vulnerability, the damage per tick for bleeds, etc are all based around the 25 stack limit.

In some cases, this limit works across all game modes. 25% increased damage is 25% increased damage for everyone. But for bleed ticks it causes problems with larger fights. Too many people are applying the condition and having no effect. So they are adjusting the ticks to be smaller, but allowing more ticks to be applied.

If they were to do the same thing with vulnerability, they’d have to reduce the impact of vulnerability to 0.5% or 0.25% and to what purpose? It’s not like someone gets tags.

apharma.3741:

Check this out http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/31wbip/ascended_vs_exotic_gear_comparison_spreedsheet/

It compares the damage increase going from zerker exotic to zerker ascended.

Spoilers: Armour is only a 1.8% increase.

Those calculations are accurate, but really only completely applicable in the dungeon environment. Which, if all you care about is PVE provides a perfectly valid basis for comparison.

For example, the spreadsheet assumes that you have 25 stacks of might and permanent fury. Both of which diminish the impact of ascended stat increases. It also assumes you trait into the power and precision lines, which also decrease the damage differential between exotic and ascended gear.

Everybody is a mesmer!

Stark.1350:

lordkrall.7241:

Stark.1350:

Once again, this game was specifically built with two week releases in mind. Those of us who have played since release are out of content. Period. And have been beating on the same content for some time.

And again, I can’t just leave. I run a guild.

Was it? The two week releases started half a year after release after all. If it was specifically built with it in mind, why did they wait half a year before starting with it?

I have played since head-start (over 1000 days now) and I still have stuff to do. Sure, it is mainly the same stuff (I mainly play WvW) but anyone with any sort of acceptance of reality KNOWS that it is completely impossible for a company to create content faster than people complete it.

I have been “out of content” since basically a day after the last content patch. It is not something that magically happened recently. That will happen in every single game.

Why can’t you leave because you run a guild? Don’t you keep pointing out how no one in the guild is logging in due to nothing to do? So why would it matter if you left or not? Apparently the people in the guild doesn’t play anyway.

People are logging on. But there are consistent complaints of how boring the game has become.
1,000 hours over 3 years is extremely casual play.

IMO, even if someone only plays 1000 hours in three years (1 hr/day) that’s not casual play. If I watch 7 hours of sports a week, I am not a casual sports fan. If I play the guitar for 7 hours a week, I am not a casual guitar player. If I play chess for 1/hr per day, it’s not considered casual play. Only MMOs.

For me, the biggest problem is that most of the recent content updates only have staying power as loot trains and glorified Skinner boxes.

They probably aren’t trolling. It’s pretty common for a guild to build golems like that for a golem rush. If you “take the golem for a spin” you will probably be viewed as the troll.

Leveling was fine the first 6 times I did it. The last 2 times (to get a full roster of characters) was pretty boring.

I imagine, for most people, they don’t like leveling because they want to jump into WvW without being upleveled.

Sebrent.3625:

If you are wanting to change stats on something other than weapons, then ask for Legendary Armor/Accessories.

On a side-note … I’d love to see the evidence that 90% of Ascended drops in WvW are Cleric stats ;-)

I wouldn’t know. I haven’t had enough ascended drops to be statistically significant. :P

EOTM can be pretty fast. But, if you are saving for a legendary, consider not making another alt. They are money sinks.

I think it’s a mistake to assume that simpler = bigger audience. While being overly complex can hurt a game, too much simplicity can hurt a game also.

I’m in favor of some of the changes (getting rid of traits that will never be viable is probably a good thing), but I’m less fond of others (I think the WvW auto-update went too far). And I think there are other things that could really stand to be simplified (there are frankly, too many gear sets / combinations, but that seems to be going the other way).

splatticus.1278:

TooBz.3065:

So, if you think the disparity between the HP of different classes is too big (which I do) then you should be in favor of any generally applicable buff that reduces the impact of that disparity.

Core balance is a whole nother beast, but I will say that balancing it through stacks would be an absolutely mind-boggling bad way to go about doing it. Hence why I think a removal of them will be a good thing in the long run for balance. They’re cancer, and they need to go.

Oh Absolutely, its a terrible way to do it! I don’t think they did it on purpose. I just think that their bad idea had some good side effects. TBH, I don’t expect them to properly balance WvW. I don’t think they even consider it.

Johje Holan.4607:

Everyone seems to be missing the really bad part of the changes though – the increase of siege damage from 5% to 10%. Yay lets make siege even stronger!

The change to siege damage is just objectively bad. There’s nothing to debate about. Someone on the balance team likes the idea of a small group of people holding off an army from within a towers walls. And they are going to keep pushing the meta until that happens.

Step 1: Make it so smaller groups have no chance against a larger force.
Step 2: Buff siege to make it so the smaller force can wipe the larger force from within a wall.
Step 3: Wonder why no one likes WvW anymore… er… I mean… profit!

splatticus.1278:

the krytan assassin.9235:

yes, 18-19k, add DS to it and you’re on 33k. The 2.5k hp isn’t gonna make a difference between getting the required HP to survive or not for the necro and normally not needed at all for a necro to survive. This means it’s almost a pure 8-10% dmge loss of ele compared to necro, without the necro losing anything of their surviveability. Also you’re making the statement that ele relies on active defense, i wonder how you want to pop those skills if you’re getting 1 shotted by thiefs without the extra vitality though….

All this is telling me that stacks are fundamentally flawed by design since attributes have different meaning for different classes. No one should have to – nor be able to – make a build require guard stacks. Which again is a good point to removing them and letting everyone readjust around this, instead of having an obviously broken system in place.

There’s nothing saying that eles will be underpowered after this, they might aswell simply have been slightly too powerful as it is now. Going full berseker while getting a large percentage hp increase from stacks isnt even remotely balanced, to be honest. Should necro be getting an equal relative percentage increase to damage through applied strength? No, stacks going away will be better in the long run.

We’ll see how it plays out after the change goes live. The benefit to stacks is that it reduces the impact in the HP disparity.

Without stacks a high HP class has 18,472 hp base and a low hp class has 10,905 hp base. That’s a 51.5% difference.

With stacks the high HP class has 20972 and the low hp class has 13045 which is a 44% difference.

So, if you think the disparity between the HP of different classes is too big (which I do) then you should be in favor of any generally applicable buff that reduces the impact of that disparity.

This is clearly a simplification. Another instance where the developers have “simplified” the game by removing choice.

I completely agree with removing the gold cost for upgrades but I’m less a fan of the rest of it.

Archon.6481:

the krytan assassin.9235:

so as ele i’m gonna lose 125 vit from trait loss, (running 4 in water atm) and losing 225 power. losing another 100 power from removal of applied strength and 250 vit from applied fortitude. gonna need to compensate the loss of vitality by adding extra vitality on my armor so gonna lose another 375 offensive stats, so in the end: -325 power-475 offensive stats.

Yes lets make evry1 hit like a wed noodle, WVW is way to hard!. luckily we don’t have to bother anymore with sieging up/supplies anymore either, it’s so hard to apply tactics in wvw you know!

It looks like Anet is trying evrything to get rid of gw2 and start playing black desert when they do the western release…..

Anet has already said that stat points lost from traits will be made up for increased base stats and increased stats on armor.

Sure, but right now you get 300 points in a targeted stat. So you can go full glass and still have (in the case on an ele) 300 more vitality. If they disperse those stats across the gear it will be 150 more major points and 75 for each of the minor. The distribution will totally change. (note: this is why people who crafted ascended armor are most upset about this change.)

Look at it this way. With HOT an ele will lose 550 vitality in WvW or over 5k hp!

WvW is more fun than either PvE or PvP. This is obviously just my opinion. But the reward for WvW is watching two army smash together.

I tend to be serially monogamous with alts. I’ll play a warrior in everything for a while, get bored, play a mesmer in everything for a while, get bored, etc..

Instead of back-ending all damage, why not just add a 1 second uninterrupteable delay before weapons are sheathed?

Ralanost.8913:

TooBz.3065:

I’m firmly in the “how does this effect you?” camp. I don’t see how giving the option to unlock waypoints would in any way affect anyone else.

It encourages other players, people that we have to interact with, to be lazy and demand things to be given to them for free from Arenanet. If this isn’t entitlement, I don’t know what is. If people can’t be kitten d to put in a little time to get something as simple as waypoints, I’m fine with them finding a different game. Lord only knows how lazy they will be in dungeons, pvp, world bosses and the like if they can’t spend a few minutes walking by a waypoint.

Stopped reading at the bolded part. I’m sick to death of people using “entitled” as if it were a dirty word. If people want my money then I’m entitled to tell them what I’d like in exchange for it. I’m entitled to make suggestions. Entitled is not a dirty word.

In this case, I’m entitled to say “hey I’d pay to unlock the waypoints on my other characters now that I have map complete” just like other people are entitled to say just like you are entitled to say something like “hey, I hate the idea of unlocking waypoints on my other characters because I enjoy boredom”

Note: I’m not even in any particular camp on this one. I just don’t see how allowing it affects people who don’t want it.

I’m firmly in the “how does this effect you?” camp. I don’t see how giving the option to unlock waypoints would in any way affect anyone else.

dancingmonkey.4902:

Spurnshadow.3678:

We’ve been asking for this ad nausium since the wardrobe patch. Threads had hundreds of replies. There were no dev responses on this subject then, and I doubt there will be any now.

Yeah, actually there were multiple dev replies on this when it was pushed at the topic. I am not entirely sure what your motive is here, but your dishonesty is not appreciated.

He’s not being dishonest if he hasn’t seen the replies. I don’t know of any developer comments on this topic. It’s generally better to assume ignorance rather than malice.

edit: it is possible to be wrong without lying.

PookieDaWombat.6209:

I know this has to be a troll post because no one that ACTUALLY plays the game would think leveling itself is a grind.

There are days when I am playing and realize I was about to hit level 80 without seeing even 50% of the world in game. And that was without crafting a single thing. With crafting it was even faster (and I was just crafting things for the level I had attained).

Leveling in GW2 is the easiest thing in the world between events, hearts, personal story, boosters, crafting, and a plethora of tomes and small xp bumps.

Well… speaking only for myself. I’ve seen the world. I have map complete, I have a legendary, I’ve done the jumping puzzles, and I’ve done them a lot. It’s a little stale.

What I want to do is mess around with a new class, but so much of that is gated behind a fair amount of leveling. I find that most of what I’m interested in I can’t do until I hit level 80. Because, for example, grandmaster traits are all locked up until you finish leveling. Leveling in the past was much better because you got access so much sooner.

Master traits at 40 and grandmaster at 60 was so much better.

Post 80 there is a fair amount of things to do. However, IMO, the most repeatable long term content is WvW. I haven’t seen anything like it in any other game, although people say it’s similar to the Dark Age of Camelot content.

This means you need to chose your starting server with a little care. I’m currently on a T1 server (see http://mos.millenium.org/na/matchups or http://mos.millenium.org/eu/matchups). I can’t really judge other tiers, and people enjoy different things.

In my experience, the higher the tier the more big fights you see, the lower the tier the more small scale roaming you see. When I was in T6 my experience was mostly getting ganked by thief groups.

I would recommend trying a tier 1 or tier 2 sever. Other people can chime in in favor of lower tiers.

I tend to agree with the OP. I have done the 0-80 leveling 10 times (I deleted characters at one point and later regretted it). I’m currently grinding my way through the 11th (which will give me 1 level 80 of each class). I’m finding it fairly dreadful.

Each level isn’t too bad, but there are a lot of them. For those of you who say it takes 2-3 days, can I ask how many hours you play a day?

I find that, if I get a good EOTM run, I can level about 2 levels an hour (maybe 3 I don’t keep track.) Is this consistent with your experience? Am I missing something obvious?

Of course, getting a good EOTM run greatly depends on which side your on and the conditions of the map. Unfortunately, we aren’t overgrowth this week, so we get wiped periodically, which slows things down.

creepmatic.9435:

I think those anti-meta threads have made Special Snow Flakes more ambitious lately. I’m so so so SO sick of people that waste other peoples time with no shame getting carried by people that try to maximaze they’re builds to provide both DPS and team utility.

I’m so sick of people complaining that their dungeon runs take 30 seconds longer. Also, if you put the correct terms in the LFG you should have a problem. May I suggest “ZERKER ONLY, I’m a really kitten about this” or “L33T RUN, MOAR DPS” which says the same thing.

I had some really bad fractal runs lately. To give an example of this abomination of “Snow Flakes”, and I’m not even talking about the gear now, how can you come in a lvl 50 fractal as a guard without reflects, camping staff as well as your virtues and MEDITATIONS! Or scepter camping eles with no conjures, or D/D eles or Rangers that don’t have the decency to give a spotter for the PS warri and the party, when he doesn’t even need to do anything than just provide a passive bonus. I’m so disgusted about those players, and I’m talking about players with lots of AP’s and several legendaries so you can’t say they are new to the game.

What class do you play? If you have trouble with guards, roll one yourself. Be self-sufficient. Stop asking for the other guards to carry you.

Most of the time it’s really not about the gear. It’s the selfish nature of people that makes me start to think some of them do this on purpose just to grief other players and waste they’re time.

I sincerely would take a power necro any day (and i really don’t have problems against good necros in fractals) before any of these useless kittens.

I hope to never meet those people again and I REALLY HOPE ANET makes an INSPECT GEAR and BUILD option, a DPS meter and more DPS checks on bosses similar to Simin.

How you a build / gear check help with guards camping their virtues? Also, if they are trying to troll you, they can just but the build you want them to run and then change it after the check.

I really want a fast way of selecting my party without the need of arguing in party chat. People will still make LFG req and will kick people. Why NOT make the whole process cleaner and faster?

I have nothing to say about this. Best of luck to you.

IMO, ArenaNet tried to innovate the way content is delivered in an MMO. That led to the living story 1 and 2. It’s not really fair to judge their attempts based on a traditional MMO release schedule, even if you were unsatisfied with the living story.

They innovated by turning their backs on the DPS/Tank/Healer trinity and greatly reducing the amount of grind required for BiS gear.

Trying something new is and hopefully better is a goal that should be appreciated. Try taking a moment to realize the guts it took to do that in a era where fewer and fewer developers are willing to take any risks.

In my book, ArenaNet are 2. 5 / 3.0. And they are still coming out with the expansion you crave.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

I just want to mention that over the weekend I played a handful of dungeon paths with players in non zerker armor to see just how terrible this plight of zerker meta is.

I did just fine. I also got a Crucible of Eternity story dungeon run, was able to help train a novice thief, met some silly people and got a couple of Friendlist + for the experience. We took a little longer, but the session was much more enjoyable than speedruns.

I saw one “Zerker only” group. Even though I run zerker, I didnt pick it.

I think I’ll put together a data set about exactly how easy it is to find people who dont care about armor when running dungeons. Because that’s literally the only place this complaint applies to.

Really good point. I also avoid zerker only groups and I don’t remember ever having trouble getting a dungeon run together. Although it has been a while….

That’s not to say that the zerker meta is bad, but just to say that it’s extremely arrogant, given the evidence, to assume that the zerker meta was intended.

Ravenmoon.5318:

The only thing that Gw2 did right is showing the world that majority of MMO players are baddies. And they need their trinity because they can’t take care for themselves.

Right… the same way that GW2 showed that most chess grandmasters are baddies who are dependent on their turn based combat.

GW2 is a different game than other MMOs. Trinity games are balanced around the DPS / Tank / Healer set up. Players can’t take care of themselves because the game is designed so that they are not to be able to.

GW2 has different design goals in mind. However, before you assume everything is working the way the developers intended, ask yourself why, if the zerker meta is correct, that there were over 40 billion different ways to combine gear at launch. Seems like a big waste of time to me.

CookieMonster.5869:

I already said sorry and I have been persuaded. My entitlement moment is over now so sorry… ; ;

That’s too bad. You made good points.

As for the “entitlement” thing. People have been using that term to belittle other peoples opinions ever since ME3 came out. It was a senseless thing then and it’s a senseless thing now. You are entitled :P to your opinion. You are entitled to not want to grind for gear.

It’s just not the way this game is set up. Wishing it were different doesn’t make you entitled. If you ask me it makes you smart.

Because they were going for a witchhunter feel as a high concept. The idea of a zealous pursuit of evil as a twist on the guardians protector image.

Personally I think this ignores the fact that the term dragonhunter carries its own baggage that is incompatible with the high concept they were going for.

Well, I believe that anyone who plays PvP is part of the PvP community. I don’t think you can rule out people who also play PvE.

However, it is fair to say that in your experience, people who also play PvE tend to be more toxic.

Wanze.8410:

Pockets.3201:

Wanze.8410:

I am not annoyed that people want this skin back in the gem store, I am annoyed by the way they go about it.

Why keep coming in here then, if it bothers you so much? Its doesn’t affect you either way.

Just as Behellagh mentioned, these duplicate topics just flush the forums.

There is a dedicated thread for things you would like to see in the gem store, where you can leave your suggestions. And please be aware that even though you suggest something doesnt mean they will implement it.
The op asked about bunny ears and gaile gave an answer, maybe they will come back.

Accept it and move on.
If you need an definite answer, just assume that they arent planning on reintroducing it at the moment or anytime soon.

I think having one post dedicated to the bunny ears is actually pretty reasonable. There’s no need to bury the bunny ears thing in a pipe dream thread.

With the current way the game is set up a zerker PvE is optimal.

The way I see it, you have a number of hits that will occur before you can kill the enemy. If all of those hits can be mitigated with dodging, blocks, and blinds, then there is no need for any defensive stats at all.

If you can’t, then there’s so many hits you can absorb before you go down. And that’s when other gear comes into play.

But the more you move away from zerker stats the longer it takes to kill stuff and the more hits you have to mitigate.

@pdavis, Thanks, so if I understand correctly (which I may not). I should have used

(hit to down B – hit to down A) / ((hit to down B + hit to down A) / 2)

in the first case I have that in a duel

PA is 13% more effective than EX, AA is 17% more effective than EX, and AA is 4% more effective than PA.

I like the hit to down metric because it ties in increases to vitality and armor as well as damage. But I realize that this is not helpful for PvE content.

Ayrilana.1396:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/31wbip/ascended_vs_exotic_gear_comparison_spreedsheet/

Or for the spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/tOHfTLaYN4f25Bz6dCl0e9Q/htmlview?pli=1

That’s great information! I wish I had seen it before. The difference between my analysis and this one is that I take into account the damage reduction from taking hits. Obviously, this isn’t important in a PvE environment, but it matters more in WvW.

Another thread asserted that the difference between Ascended and Exotic gear is only 5%. I believe this is not true, but instead of derailing that thread to point out the error I decided to make my own. I do not intend this to be either pro-ascended or anti-ascended, instead, I just want to lay out what I believe to be the facts.

As such, I may be wrong. Please let me know which of my assumptions are erroneous.

In my view, most people ignore the way stats interact with each other. As such, I am going to compare three versions of standard meta-builds. The first will be all ascended gear (AA), the second will be partial ascended (ascended weapons and trinkets, exotic armor), the third will be all exotics. If a piece of gear can accept an infusion, I am including the recommended infusion in the build. I’m using the recommended consumables. If there is a choice of builds, I’m selecting the one that has the biggest base stat increase to minimize the effect of ascended gear. I’m not sure the best way to handle that there is no soldier gem for exotic jewelry, I’m settling on azurite, which is the closest I can find (loss of power, gain of vitality over soldiers)

I’m going to look at effective power, measured by average weapon damage * power * ((1-crit chance)(1) + (crit chance)(crit damage))
I am also going to compare the number of hits to down in a duel (1 vs 1 situation).

The first build I’m looking at is the Guardian-Meta Build.
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Guardian_-_AH_Frontliner

AA version
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJASGmIhoyaGw+DChy86A4COAA-TVRQwAZV/pjyvVKBBs/QPdBBAQAuZsZAH9oH9oH9odzbO0bO0bWGAmFA-w
average weapon damage: 1100, power 2213, Crit Chance 21%, Crit Damage 170, Armor 3252, Health 25355
Raw Power: 1100*2213((1-.21)(1) + (.21)(1.7)) = 2,792,142

PA Version
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJASGmIhoyaGw+DChy86A4COAA-TVRPwAAU/JkyvXKBJs/QQdBBAQAuZsZAu5NH6NH6NLDAzCA-w
average weapon damage: 1100, power 2199, crit chance: 21%, crit damage 170, armor 3181, health 24945
Raw Power: 1100*2199((1-.21)(1) + (.21)(1.7)) = 2,774,478

EX Version
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJASGmIhoyaGw+DChy86A4COAA-TlxFwAX0FQT5nJ1fAoEU1+DaN/RGAmFA-w
average weapon damage: 1048, power 2043, crit chance: 20%, crit damage 170, armor 3135, health 25185
Raw Power: 1048*2043*((1-.2)(1)+(.2)(1.7)) = 2,440,813

Raw Power
In terms of raw power, the PA is a 13.67% increase over EX, the AA is a 14.39% increase over the EX, and AA is a .006% increase over PA.

For a duel.
EX vs PA
EX does 2,440,813/3181=767.31 points of damage to PA each hit. PA has 24,945 health. EX downs PA in 32.51 hits.
PA does 2,774,478/3135=885.00 points of damage to EX each hit. EX has 25185 health. PA downs EX in 28.48 hits.
In a duel PA downs EX in 12.40% less hits.

PA vs AA
PA does 2,774,478/3252 = 853.16 points of damage to AA each hit. AA has 25,355 health. PA downs AA in 29.72 hits.
AA does 2,792,142/3181 = 877.76 points of damage to PA each hit. PA has 24,945 health. AA downs PA in 28 hits.
In a duel AA downs PA in 4.38% fewer hits.

From this I conclude that, in a PvP environment. Full Ascended is approximately 4% better than Partial Ascended.

As a comparison, look at the warrior build.

AA version http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQNBiYDxAcBF2+OA0lCpzgQYDA-TVRWwADU+FU9HS6GAs/gElgkBgZMA-w
PA version http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQNBiYDxAcBF2+OA0lCpzgQYDA-TVRPwAfU+BU3AA1f4s/gLlgkBgZMA-w
EX version http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQNBiYDxAcBF2+OA0lCpzgQYDA-TlRDwAJUC2T5HIdDwU/h5+DAM/RGAmxA-w

Following the above methodology you can see that again, full ascended is about 4% better than partial ascended in a dueling situation.

tl;dr in an environment where you care about armor full ascended is about 4% better that ascended with exotic armor and 14% better than exotic armor. Partial ascended is about 10% better than exotics.

caveman.5840:

ya … I felt foolish lol … was so bummed when I tried to salvage it

Me too!

In my limited experience, everyone I know that has put an expensive rune in WvW armor has bitterly regretted it and felt foolish.

I’m fairly sure that it does not say anywhere in game that this gear cannot be salvaged before you buy it. I know it was a surprise to me. If it does please let me know.

coglin.1867:

I agree. It is not your responsibility to identify solution. That doesn’t change a fact that how it effects the economy was mentioned as a problem that effects everyone else, and you followed up that fact by saying you do not care how it effects the economy, hence, your promoting the idea of not caring how it effects everyone else.

You can inquire as to how it effects the economy, or argue that you feel it does not effect the economy, but the second you say you do not care how it effects the economy, you are saying you do not care how it effects me or all the other players game wide. I care how things effect other players, because without a player base, the game I enjoy playing can fail. So, it is in my best interest to speak against posters who openly demand changes under the openly admitted context that they do not care how their wants effect the rest of us.

Fair Enough. I should have said that I’m not going to engage in a debate about how it affects the economy. I’ve noticed over my years on the forums that there are some arguments that people throw out as discussion stoppers because there is no reply to them. These include but are not limited to, “it’s working as intended”, “that’s a L2P issue”, “you don’t speak for ALL of us” and other pedantic nonsense, and “you can’t because economy”. Most of these usually include the ever helpful </thread>

Here’s another reason why unsalvageable armor from WvW is stupid.

It’s a trap for the unwary. Newbies buy their armor there because it’s easy and cheap and gives them something to do with the badges. Then they put runes on it, only to find that the runes are lost forever.

The next time, they just don’t buy armor from WvW. It may as well not be there. That doesn’t sound healthy to me.