Guild Wars 2

shaman.1938:

Cyninja the only issue I see with the possible changes with the conditional damage is you will suddenly have everyone looking for rampage gear instead of the zerks gear they are now all using ..

I don’t know IF it can be “fixed” as such other than bringing back the trinity (and i kind of hate that idea as it is nice to not have to get the “right” group together and I am one of those nutty ones who plays an ele in support/dps role)

Ideally and if done correctly, condition damage will come close enough or slightly surpass direct damage.

This would lead to different damage builds being viable at least. It would still not fix the problems of necromancer or ranger lacking group support (again, ranger and necro damage is amongst the highest in the game if played properly). Let’s hope we see some changes in this department.

If taken to far, or not far enough though we will be stuck with “1 damage type to rule them all”. So let’s hope anet is on the ball.

Again, trinity won’t come to this game. It’s simply not possible given the available ressources. The amount of work to properly change the game would be equal to an entire expansion if not more.

Dhorghar.5249:

Nemesis explains really well what’s wrong with the berserker meta in his new video!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js5ltIBr73s

I’ll start off by saying I really don’t like Nemesis. I see him as a worse Kripp (which I also barely can stand). It’s something about his style of coming over as very arrogant (his selective fake laughing does no help here). I’m putting this here not to discredit him, just puting it here for completions sake since I have a negative disposition towards his videos.

His analysis is mostly correct though and his explanation is not very different from what some people have already stated in this thread (myself included).

Let’s take appart what his video is about:

Analysis of the problem
+ mostly correct. He explains how the berserker meta developed

+ lack of content made people overspecialize which resulted in maximum damage groups

+ he mentions pvp being part of the game (forgot wvw but okay for the sake and purposes at least he mentions one of the other game modes)

+ he mentions the weak AI as being part of the problem (again this was already mentioned by people in this thread)

- he compares berserker players to hacker, cheater, exploiters and basically states that this only exists because people wall hack or skip content in non intended ways. I strongly object to this. Yes, there are broken mechanics in this game, but not every one running full berserker is exploiting them. Big difference

- he compares pvp to pve and his analysis of why and how the gearshould work is extrapolated from pvp to pve. For example: melee damage needs to close in pvp first before getting to hit while ranged have an advantage but supposedly less damage. QUOTE: Melee glasscanonwill hit significantly higher than the ranged glasscanon END QUOTE. This is simply not true. Ranger damage and Necro damage say high. Not even going to go into the notion of balancing pve with pvp arguments…

+/- he views using the AI to funnel or group mobs as glitching. This was present in GW1 and can be considered an AI problem which if fixed would indeed make berserker meta tougher, but no wear near impossible. There are enough skills for pulling and ccing mobs to get the same effect. It woul raise the needed skill ceiling for using zerker though, I’d be all for this

- he focuses only on pve after his initial wierd pvp mention and never even mentions pvp or wvw later on.

- he provides no example of any boss not doable in full berserker gear without exploiting and the bosses shown during that part of his presentation are being killed sloppy and certainly are doable with an optimized party without exploiting. So unsure what he is going for here. His arguments are based on randoms in pugs I think complaining about “bosses needing to get fixed”.

- he never mentions the core problems of necro or ranger. lack of group support. which is very unfortunate since he himself is playing a necromancer.

Provided advice and HoT changes

+ yes, there will be major changes in HoT

+ anet is going for a shift to more condition damage and condition damage being viable more (this also has been staed by multiple players already)

+ he correctly adresses a problem where new players are starting to immitate advanced player behavior resulting in less immersion and more skipped content. His comparison to Ice Crown Citadel ( a raid in WoW) is laughable. GW2 has no raids. There are enough beter comparisons but of corse picking an example where a guild gets banned for exploiting fits his agenda better

- he gets progressively more arrogant and openly bashed expert players

- his analysis on profit is funny and wrong. yes, if everyone were capable of running every dungeon in 5 minutes, there would be no benefit .
-> besides the benefit over people not running the dungeon – whops, first benefit
-> besides the people who finish the dungeon slower – whops, second benefit

- he takes the QUOTE This ability will not do the same damage as before END QUOTE (used mostly with elementalist summoned weapons) completely out of context and uses it to explain a complete shift in game and content approach.

He then goes on a ramble about new content and getting excited over cutscenes etc. which I can fully understand since many of use are gobbeling up any new content that we can see about HoT.

He himself offers almost no suggestions as to how to fix the current meta besides saying:“anet will fix it.” He specifically does not mention a redesign of stats on gear but focuses more on the actual reasons of why zerker meta exists (weak AI, stale content, to easy content) where a lot of people in this thread could take a heap of learning away from.

Eurhetemec.9052:

Cyninja.2954:

Harper.4173:

That’s the problem. With any system you can’t please everybody and when you try to you end up pleasing nobody. The trick is to find the most people you can please with your product and sell it to them.

GW2 bet its money on gathering non-traditional MMO players (casuals, non-trinity players, fashion lovers, etc) and aggressively marketed their game toward said players.
To go back and add a trinity or similar role-dependent systems is to slap their player base in the face and waste their own effort of carving out a niche ( which they have done VERY successfully).

Absolutely agree.

What most don’t realize, GW2 is unique in some aspects. Giving up on this would mean to turn/create it into another mainstream Everquest,WoW, etc clone.

Let’s look at how those games did the last few years…

SW:TOR -> went F2P
Warhammer Online -> went F2P, then closed down
Tera -> F2P
Rift -> F2P
ES:Online -> F2P

The funny thing is, even if GW2 switched over to a trinity system (which I have already explained is near impossible, but people just don’t listen) it would endup as another clone among many. No big deal, since most advocating for this change would simply leave to the next better WoW clone or even WoW itsself. Only the players enjoying GW2 for its uniqueness would be left in the cold.

All those games are " unique in some aspects".

Post-F2P SWTOR is singificantly more financially successful than GW2.

Warhammer shut down for reasons unrelated to success. GW2’s design mimics it or learns from it heavily.

TERA is arguably more unique/unusual than GW2 (and way more pervy/creepy but…).

Not saying copy them, but your examples are sketchy.

Sure they are, but what are we talking about here? Itemization if I’m not mistaken. All those games are very similar in that while GW2 is unique.

My example was merely to state that going trinity will not solve any problems but instead create way bigger ones.

Also SW:TOR being more successful than GW2 is a big funny. Sure it could be more successful but are you really factoring in all the costs like developement and SW:TOR requiring at least 500k subscribers while running a p2p model (according to EA)? Meaning they must have cut back kitten staff for that game since it went f2p.

Tell me, how much unique content or expansions have come out and/or are announced for that game? None, last I recalled. It’s on the known f2p livesupport where some basic content gets added every few months to make people jump through new hoops or they introduce a new item tier where people need to regrind their equipment. Not to mention the Star Wars name holding it up.

Warhammer shut down because Games Workshop pulled the liscence. Yeah that had nothing to do money or the game spiraling down and being on life support for years. They basically decided they didn’t want their flagship IP at the bottom of the food chain making them no money.

Not so secret was super easy when it was released and entire guilds were running it with lots of mesmers.

For everyone like me who missed those times, yeah it’s painful even with jumping puzzle experience. First time I tried it solo it took me about 45 minutes to get to the airship and then I failed getting the googles (without stoping for the chest first).

Next time I had a friend and we dual mesmered it, still painful but at least I got the achievement. Then while standing on top with the googles, I managed to hit the 1 beam on the way down which you can’t see due to clipping. Dunno when I’ll ever go up there again….

Harper.4173:

That’s the problem. With any system you can’t please everybody and when you try to you end up pleasing nobody. The trick is to find the most people you can please with your product and sell it to them.

GW2 bet its money on gathering non-traditional MMO players (casuals, non-trinity players, fashion lovers, etc) and aggressively marketed their game toward said players.
To go back and add a trinity or similar role-dependent systems is to slap their player base in the face and waste their own effort of carving out a niche ( which they have done VERY successfully).

Absolutely agree.

What most don’t realize, GW2 is unique in some aspects. Giving up on this would mean to turn/create it into another mainstream Everquest,WoW, etc clone.

Let’s look at how those games did the last few years…

SW:TOR -> went F2P
Warhammer Online -> went F2P, then closed down
Tera -> F2P
Rift -> F2P
ES:Online → F2P

The funny thing is, even if GW2 switched over to a trinity system (which I have already explained is near impossible, but people just don’t listen) it would endup as another clone among many. No big deal, since most advocating for this change would simply leave to the next better WoW clone or even WoW itsself. Only the players enjoying GW2 for its uniqueness would be left in the cold.

Thaddeus.4891:

Harper.4173:

Actually you can calculate if condition duration for GS’s vulnerability or might duration is more effective. You can actually figure out which of the 3rd stats provides the party with the most benefits and make that the meta.

Jesus. I know. There will be a meta gear for each profession. My point is that it won’t be the same for each profession. For exemple, we’ll figure out that hey boon duration is the best choice for a warrior. But for an engineer boon duration will be useless while Condi Duration will be the best choice. Different profession will have different meta gear. But yes, for each profession there will be only one gear that is meta.

So we are going from one gear fits all (and can be traded freely between characters) to best in slot per class.

The problem of people wanting to play something different isn’t fixed since they are forced to play in their best in slot for their class.

The problem of having to create multiple sets of gear since you can’t share them any more between same armor characters is created forcing people to spend even more time and gold on getting ascended.

How is any one winning in this scenario?

Astralporing.1957:

Yes, that’s a good question. What is the point of so many stats existing in this game, when the combat system seems to support only some of them?

I think that thsi question is actually a basis of the “zerker meta problem”. The game pretends to offer us a choice, but at the same time doesn’t even try to pretend there’s more than one correct answer.

WvW, PvP are 2 huge areas of the game that come to mind straight off the bat as to why we have so much choice in stats on gear.

Why do people keep focussing on PvE only when disscussing stats and choice?

Dawnbreaker.6215:

Even more than this, you seem to be very concerned about glasscanon builds, as if it were a matter of personal taste and not of objectivity. I am going to ask you to theorize, to imagine a scenario where condition stack tank builds were the superior choice in game. Let’s imagine that dungeons become more difficult to nukers due to high AoE conditions or other attacks that overwhelm the dodge and block abilities, and the absolute most efficient way of doing dungeons becomes being a tank who stacks conditions on NPCs until they die. This is not the case now, but I am simply asking you to imagine that scenario.

What problem would you have with that? See, there would be no trinity there. Would it upset you that glasscanons wouldn’t be as good? If so, it proves this is a personal issue of yours, and not a rational concern over the game’s balance.

I say this, because I read someone else say earlier that even after HoT, he wants all classes to converge to nuker builds. And I can’t get what your obsession with nukers is – it’s clearly not a rational desire for game balance.

No problems, but your analysis of what would happen is flawed.

Here is what would actually happen if they implemented the change you suggested:

- very skilled players would find ways to maximize damage yet again
-> result, things stay unchanged, less skilled players have a harder time. This is already the case, many people are running berserker’s and are not skilled enough to use that gear set. This is a player issue, not something the devs could ever fix. As was mentioned earlier, if you do it properly (and the way it worked for the first year.) People start of with more defensive sets and work their way to maximum damage. The fact that most people skip this process is simply because they want to be part of the meta instantly.

- okay so we make the content so hard that even the most skilled players can’t finished the content in plain berserkers (or we implement arbitrary limitations like in the tequatle fight where Zerkers does not provide max damage)

-> result: there is a new “best in slot” just for this content. you are now required to carry around 2 sets of gear. more casual players have litterally no chance of ever completing the content since it’s been made so hard that they need not even try. (see Tripple trouble worm)

In no result would there be more viable sets at the same time. In no situation would the game benefit from this. The way defences are setup, defensive stats do not matter. It’s that simple. No amount of increasing of damage will change that.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

dlonie.6547:

I’ll stick around for direct questions, too

Dawnbreaker.6215:

Why do you hate the trinity gameplay?

I don’t. I can just appreciate the combat system that is here, without getting hung up on the fact that its different.

And how do you know where this game is going after HoT? More than once have I heard that they are trying to bring changes to the current zerk problem. If they balance classes and make glasscanon runs impossible, and if several builds are viable and required for dungeons, it will inevitably lead to the trinity setup.

If they make glass cannons completely non-viable, that would go against the core design of the game. That isn’t going to happen.

There’s no other alternative. It’s either you can run dungeons with 5 people using the same build, or you can’t and are forced to rely on several builds. If you see any grey zone there then feel free to point it out, because I myself am not seeing it at all.

What you’re missing is that a build is more than gear stats. All zerks aren’t running the same build, there are multiple “meta” trait and skill configurations used for different PvE encounters. Just because they aren’t changing their gear doesn’t mean they’re all playing the same way.

What is according to you the core design of this game?

Active combat:

- active dodge
- active reflects
- group synergy from offensive and defensive skills
- the possibility to reduce all damage directed at the group/player through skillfull play (relfexes and proper skill choice)

No trinity:

- the classes and content are not designed to tank and spank
- changing this is not a mere change in some stats here in there. It’s a redesign of the entire PvE and PvP aspect of the game
- recoding of the entire AI aswell since it currently doesn’t support tank and spank

Those things combined are the sole reason why people are able to work off of maximum damage stats and pick berserkers. It has literally nothing to do with the actual stats on the armor.

Summerized:

Damage negation = not relevant on gear.

Solution: roll maximum damage gear.

dlonie.6547:

Cyninja.2954:

As a not very devote person, I’ll still leave you with this quote of the Serenity Prayer hoping it might part on some wisdom to you:

"
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
"
Serenity Prayer

It also applies quite well to the conversation in this thread

True. It just becomes so tiresome when the always same topics with the always same flawed conclusions as basis reappear.

If we assume that berserker gear is a problem, I would love for people to come up with solutions that don’t invole changing stats on gear (since those aren’t the core problem) but instead analyse game mechanics, make suggestions on how to change or improve on them and then end with a proper conclusion to it all that does not include “let’s go back to trinity system, etc etc”.

This circle of uselessness clutters up the forums for meaningful disscussions on actual things that need addressing.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

Cyninja.2954:

Dawnbreaker.6215:

Cyninja.2954:

Dawnbreaker.6215:

Cyninja.2954:

Dawnbreaker.6215:

I call bullkitten on this. Both defensive, instacast abilities like blocking, or any CC abilities like knockdowns, knockbacks, taunts and stuns have been around long before GW2. Unless you are talking about Runescape which is entirely based on probabilities (and here we are talking about a 14-15 year old browser game) most MMOs of today have mechanics similar to GW2.

Name 1 MMO that does semi-well with active defence and no trinity besides GW2. Just 1 please cause I have a very hard time thinking of one.

Yes, other games have active defences (Tera for one- went f2p) but none of those have no trinity. MAJOR! difference.

With active defense there are a ton, but without trinity there are none. You speak of trinity as if it’s some kind of advantage, but it’s not, it’s more a flaw than anything. No trinity leads to stagnation, it’s a problem.

When you advertise a lack of trinity, you sound like this:

“Hey guys! My car is unlike others, it lacks seatbelts, doors and windows! Look at my innovation!”

I speak of trinity as part of the game which needs to be considered when designing new content and adressing balance. Something your suggestions and ideas are lacking hard.

Thanks for confirming though that your argument with “other games do it” is void. There are no other games similar to GW2 currently.

I said that other games have defence and CC active abilities. Never once I have said that they had both a lack of trinity and defence/CC. Not once.

Yet your suggestions are entirely based on the other games working in a similar way as GW2, which they don’t.

The point being that other games are doing it right, and GW2 isn’t. Proof? Other games have several viable builds, in GW2 you can run the entire game with 1 build.

Maybe, with a bit of critical thinking, you could be led to think that GW2 would be better off just having a system that is confirmed to work than trying to invent something that doesn’t. You must play zerk, yes? Going for things that work rather than being creative is something familiar to you, yes? Then we should be agreeing here.

I am very capable of critical thinking. I am also capable of understanding that change is only possible in a given frame and what you are advocating is not in that frame. Now you can keep living in your deluded fantasy of turning GW2 into another WoW clone, or you could realize what can and can’t be done.

As a not very devote person, I’ll still leave you with this quote of the Serenity Prayer hoping it might part on some wisdom to you:

"
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
"
Serenity Prayer

Dawnbreaker.6215:

Cyninja.2954:

Dawnbreaker.6215:

Cyninja.2954:

Dawnbreaker.6215:

I call bullkitten on this. Both defensive, instacast abilities like blocking, or any CC abilities like knockdowns, knockbacks, taunts and stuns have been around long before GW2. Unless you are talking about Runescape which is entirely based on probabilities (and here we are talking about a 14-15 year old browser game) most MMOs of today have mechanics similar to GW2.

Name 1 MMO that does semi-well with active defence and no trinity besides GW2. Just 1 please cause I have a very hard time thinking of one.

Yes, other games have active defences (Tera for one- went f2p) but none of those have no trinity. MAJOR! difference.

With active defense there are a ton, but without trinity there are none. You speak of trinity as if it’s some kind of advantage, but it’s not, it’s more a flaw than anything. No trinity leads to stagnation, it’s a problem.

When you advertise a lack of trinity, you sound like this:

“Hey guys! My car is unlike others, it lacks seatbelts, doors and windows! Look at my innovation!”

I speak of trinity as part of the game which needs to be considered when designing new content and adressing balance. Something your suggestions and ideas are lacking hard.

Thanks for confirming though that your argument with “other games do it” is void. There are no other games similar to GW2 currently.

I said that other games have defence and CC active abilities. Never once I have said that they had both a lack of trinity and defence/CC. Not once.

Yet your suggestions are entirely based on the other games working in a similar way as GW2, which they don’t.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

maha.7902:

Dawnbreaker.6215:

dlonie.6547:

Guest.8245:

What reasons did I miss for zerker only being fine?

Short answer:

Stale content is the problem, not that we’ve figured out how to do it without passive defenses after doing the exact same fights for going-on 3 years.

That’s a terrible point actually.

WoW has existed for more than 10 years and it has always had tanks, healers and nukers in every dungeon, even the ones that are old.

LoL/DoTa, just to mention an example that isn’t a MMORPG, have been going for a long time as well, and it is unthinkable to have a full nuker party. Suggesting so would get you ridiculed.

The zerk meta exists because of poor gear balancing. If tanks were a lot tankier and had a taunt (while doing much less damage), and if monsters did much more damage, it would force team setups to have tanks and nukers.

not really. you can run a squishy AP support (sona, annie, something like that), adc, assassin mid lane and two bruisers as jungler and top lane and you could probably win the game if you split pushed well or got ahead enough in the laning phase that the weakness of your composition’s team fight was irrelevant since you had a gold lead.

In LoL it’s possible to win with everything. They have 100+ champions and make almost all of them viable. You see a fed Nasus, Leona and Amumu coming your way backed by a Vayne and Ziggs, you know the game is over – and there you have 3 tanks 2 nukers. Here in GW2, we have 25 gear sets and people manage to find ways of playing with 1 of them only. It’s a disgrace. Funny thing is, so many people I have seen in GW2 will easily discard LoL as a kittenty teenager game when it’s actually far better designed when it comes to diversity.

Are you seriously comparing a MOBA to an MMO? Mind = blown. Yeah done here, no point arguing with that.

How about we start adding comparisons to CS:GO, Battlefield, GTA:V, Dark Souls and any other game that was popular the last 10 years. I’m sure there is a lot of room for improvement if we incorporate the entire spectrum of game types.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

Cyninja.2954:

Dawnbreaker.6215:

I call bullkitten on this. Both defensive, instacast abilities like blocking, or any CC abilities like knockdowns, knockbacks, taunts and stuns have been around long before GW2. Unless you are talking about Runescape which is entirely based on probabilities (and here we are talking about a 14-15 year old browser game) most MMOs of today have mechanics similar to GW2.

Name 1 MMO that does semi-well with active defence and no trinity besides GW2. Just 1 please cause I have a very hard time thinking of one.

Yes, other games have active defences (Tera for one- went f2p) but none of those have no trinity. MAJOR! difference.

With active defense there are a ton, but without trinity there are none. You speak of trinity as if it’s some kind of advantage, but it’s not, it’s more a flaw than anything. No trinity leads to stagnation, it’s a problem.

When you advertise a lack of trinity, you sound like this:

“Hey guys! My car is unlike others, it lacks seatbelts, doors and windows! Look at my innovation!”

I speak of trinity as part of the game which needs to be considered when designing new content and adressing balance. Something your suggestions and ideas are lacking hard.

Thanks for confirming though that your argument with “other games do it” is void. There are no other games similar to GW2 currently.

dlonie.6547:

Dawnbreaker.6215:

Arcadio.6875:

The problem is the lack of new content to challenge people. If new challenging content is released, players would have a hard time surviving in zerker gear until they learn the encounters.

I disagree entirely. First, seeing how much some people play the game, any new content is bound to get “old” very fast. Secondly, glasscannon runs don’t need to be the ultimate solution everytime.

With your logic, any new dungeon will be hard for the first week, and then we’ll be stuck with the zerk meta again for another year.

It was about a year after launch before zerk started becoming dominantly pushed on players. If we were getting regular instanced PvE challenges added to the game, the collective experience level would be knocked down regularly to reset the learning curve.

It seems Anet clearly designed this game in such a way that all gameplay styles should come to shine at some point. If you are chosing to build Shaman gear, you should in theory have an area in PvE where your Shaman setup is the ultimate best (this is in theory only, not in practice at the moment). There should be a dungeon or other instance where people put a party in LFG and say “we need someone using Shaman gear for this”. I can’t see any other reason for why there are 25 sets.

I’d love to see a source on this. They designed all gearsets to be viable, not optimal. Again, if this was how the game worked, it’d be dreadful — you’d need to carry each of the 25 sets around so that you could actually do all of the content.

Instead, you get gear with passive defenses that match your experience level, and as you gain experience, you swap in more powerful stats. Your utility comes from your traits, skills, and weapon choices. Would you honestly prefer having one encounter that required one gear set over another?

The way it is now is the stagnating, boring way you described: there’s a few sets there to learn dungeons with, and ultimately all playstyles converge to zerk if they want efficiency. This is bad for diversity in game and it discourages creativity and progress.

How would strapping on tank/healing/boon sharing/magic find/etc gear encourage creativity? It’d just fill up your inventory.

The boredom arises from stale content, poor AI, and HP-sponge bosses with trivial mechanics. Not lack of gear diversity.

Quoted for truth.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

I call bullkitten on this. Both defensive, instacast abilities like blocking, or any CC abilities like knockdowns, knockbacks, taunts and stuns have been around long before GW2. Unless you are talking about Runescape which is entirely based on probabilities (and here we are talking about a 14-15 year old browser game) most MMOs of today have mechanics similar to GW2.

Name 1 MMO that does semi-well with active defence and no trinity besides GW2. Just 1 please cause I have a very hard time thinking of one.

Yes, other games have active defences (Tera for one- went f2p) but none of those have no trinity. MAJOR! difference.

PvE top tier:

- Berserker
- Assassins

PvP top tier:

- Berserker
- Assassins
- Celestial
- Rabid
- Dire

WvW (ZvZ)top tier:

- Sentinels
- Soldier
- Knights
- Valkyrie

WvW (roaming) top tier:

- similar to pvp, mis of pvp+zvz

I fail to see the problem. Anet is working on making conditions more viable in PvE, but even without that, why is it so hard for people to understand that with current game mechanics and design there are different sets for different areas of the game. The entire argument about different stats set not getting use it bogus. They just don’t see use in optimal PvE groups.

AugustVoelk.3497:

I’ve always played my warrior, and he’s full ascended and I even managed to get a sunrise, but as time has gone on and on, I’ve become extremely bored with warrior, mainly because I find their abilities are painfully bland, maybe this is just me. But recently I’ve been constantly debating re-rolling with a new character, maybe an engi? I’m just attracted to the cool flashy classes. So, basically, my question is, do you guys think it’s worth all the effort? I know that ascended armor and weapons is no big deal to get, but it’s the other things that bother me, trying to get world completion on another character….getting all the skill points to get all the traits. I’m just really torn because I feel like I might want to do it, but I’m also becoming more and more of a casual player as time goes on. It might also be because I’m just not that great of a warrior, which is also a possibility, don’t let my gear confuse you, my gear just took time, not skill, and I’ve always played GS/Hammer, which I guess could be a reason why I see it as being so bland. I Just wanted to see if you guys had any advice.

No, not worth it under these conditions. You’ll just get burned out or lose interest again once you are done.

What would be worth it you trying out some of the other classes and messing around a bit and see if you have fun. Guardian would be a natural pick since if you really wanted to switch you could just transfer the gear (and no, guardians are not similar to warriors).

Giving some of the medium or light armor classes a go would be a big switch. Don’t go all gung-ho “I’m rerolling my main” into it. Make a twink, try him out, move back to your warrior when fatigue sets in and remember that HoT is comming up shacking everything up quite a bit.

Astralporing.1957:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Who needs ascended stats! lets make them the same as exotics!

…but wait… why do I need to grind gold for exotics? Don’t I deserve to get exotic stats with the same amount of effort as rare stats?

Who needs exotics stats! lets make them the same as rare!

…but wait… why do I need to grind gold for rares? Don’t I deserve to get rare stats with the same amount of effort as masterwork stats?

Who needs rare stats! lets make them the same as masterwork!

…but wait… why do I need to grind silver for masterwork? Don’t I deserve to get masterwork stats with the same amount of effort as blue stats?

Who needs masterwork stats! lets make them the same as blues!

…but wait… why do I need to grind gold to level crafting? Don’t I deserve to have 500 crafting in every profession? I thought this game was about fun not grinding?

Who needs to level crafting! level 500 for everyone!

but wait… why do I need to spend time and gold to level my character? Don’t I deserve to be level 80 immediately? Why do I have to grind to level 80?

Who needs levels! instant 80 for everyone!

And that’s pretty much how it worked in GW1. And, funny thing, people liked it that way.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

yeah come to think of it your idea isn’t very fun… I think i’ll stick with how the game was meant to be.

Originally it was meant to be closer to the GW1 progression idea. So yeah, i also would rather stick to how it was meant to be before ascended got released.

Your and my experience or memory of GW1 must be very different. Yes, crafting the very basic armor was quite cheap, still 4-10 plat as far as I remember. But putting in decent runes (especially max vigor) would easily set you back 60-90 plat (30-50 plat of that for the superior vigor rune).

An amount that took quite a while to farm unless you were very hardcore into trading.

Take off the pink glasses or memory.

Nice work. Especially the difference between full ascended and ascended with exotic armor is important since the armor is the trully expensive one.

I fear though that once again this won’t matter to the “make ascended equal to exotic it’s to overpowered” crowd.

It’s unfortunate the people aren’t even aware of their OCDs being the main problem behind this, and not actual ingame stats.

Still nice read.

A Volcano.2510:

Basandra Skye.4031:

A Volcano.2510:

Basandra Skye.4031:

By the way, do people realize that “intending” something isnt actually the same as “doing” something? I mean… I intend to get every existing precursor out of the forge (gotten 6 so far actually) by the end of the year. Am I actually going to attempt to do it? Given rng, probably not. Not actively at least. I just like flushing things to see what comes out.

Afterall….. they said they intend to bring back SAB. But……. I dont see it.

edit: stat increases are quite literally meaningless from exotic to ascended, giving as little as +0 increase in damage, or as minor as +10 damage. An ascended weapon vs exotic weapon is a difference of up to 20% damage. Want proof? Go look it up yourself on any of the skill builders out there.

So if the differences are meaningless, we can make them the same, yes?

Again, why do you want them the same? Because you want ascended tier stats but dont want to put the effort? Why stop there? Why not give every piece of armor the same stats? Make everything equal? There’s no reason to do something so frivolous.

If someone wants ascended, they can put out the effort to get it. They dont want to put out the effort? They can make do in exotic gear.

You seem very defensive.

You said “stat increases are quite literally meaningless from exotic to ascended,” and I said if they are meaningless why not make them the same?

Then you protested. The OBVIOUS corollary is that you don’t really think they are meaningless.

Yes?

Edit: Logic hurts, I know. I am just sick of people saying that there is no practical gear stat difference, while at the same time defending for their life the stat difference. Hypocrisy comes to mind.

If we assume the stat difference is indeed not worth mentioning, both trains of thought have merit.

A.) The first being, if it’s small, why not remove it? (mostly people without ascended)

B.) The second being, it’s so small, why remove it? (mostly people who have ascended but also some who openly admint to not having ascended and being fine with it)

There is just 1 difference between both at the moment. Most people in category B have invested a huge amount of time into getting ascended. It is logical that here people would get defensive and defend their invested time instead of just having that taken from them.

Most people aren’t defending the stat difference, they are defending their time investment. A very logical human reaction in my opinion.

If you want a solution or to persuade people from camp B to change their mind, offer them something different for their invested time. For example, reduce ascended stat difference to exotic, but let people freely chose desired stats, same as with legendary items. I’m sure most would flock to your argument and the stat difference would be gone. Ofcorse I could see a lot of people from camp A raging over this kind of proposal.

Andraus.3874:

I would just have this thread closed. Every point has been said at least 2-3 times. Agree to disagree seems to be the solution here.

This. Since the main arguments from both sides have been given and repeated multiple times, while no side offers any alternatives this thread became pointless past the first page.

Mine Laces.7108:

… snip…

15 days ago i got spark from forge by just putting 4 random rare daggers i drop from world bosses into it.
It was a good feeling, after all the gold wasted i felt like the game was finally rewarding me.
Feeling lucky i decided to invest 400 golds in greatswords ( always wanted Twilight ) and magically i come back with a Dusk and a Dawn drop.

… snip…

So you basically got close to 2k gold thrown at you by rng. I’d keep very quiet around others, there are people having thrown in over 3k gold and not even getting 1 precursor.

You are right though, it is the games fault. You should have been a tad more unlucky and not gotten 3 precursors. Then your gold reserves would not have sufficed to build Eternity and you to become overly greedy.

Advice? Sell Eternity for 3-3.5k and walk away. You’ll be way more lucky than 95% of the player base and get to keep a nice gold pile for HoT. Also, don’t mention this story to all to many people, unless you want envy to be your new constant companion.

Astralporing.1957:

snip

Okay, I viewed those as anet being more careful with how they approach the gear topic moving away from saying stuff like “never” or dealing in absolutes.

I stand by my assessment that their main focus was ascended as top tier for a long time to be. I do understand how someone very sceptical can understand those differently.

IndigoSundown.5419:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jy7CcwnfUdU

This interview is from ~10 months after Ascended was introduced, and around the time weapons released. Whether there would be additional tiers or not was obviously on player minds. Even here, he states he “hopes” it will be the last tier, but does not promise.

Given this, kindly provide the evidence that Asc. was always meant to be the final tier. I very much doubt you will find such a statement, but have at it.

Fwiw, the HoT reveal “promise” is unequivocal that no new tier will come with HoT. It did not sound (to me) like a promise that no new tier will come, ever. In other words, the Pax interview from Sept 2013 seems to still be the ANet stance.

I agree, the interview shows that anet became very careful dealing in absolutes.

Let me quote Colin Johanson from that interview:

Question: Is there going to be more or above ascended gear? Are you going to upgrade the weapon and armor every 2 years?
Answer Colin: I really hope not. When we brought the game out we hoped exotic would take a certain amount of time to get. I think we did a really poor job of calculating how long it would take to get… (here he clrealy states that ascendend was the solution to their misscalculation of how long it takes to gear up).

Now that being said I don’t want to promise we are never going to do it because 7 years from now we might turn around and do it, or some one else is in charge…

But to me I feel like this should be it. – Colin Johanson

It shows anet was happy at the time with ascendend and had NO plans to upgrade to another tier. How anyone can get any other impression from “I really hope not”, “7 years from now” or"I feel this should be it" is beyond me.

Astralporing.1957:

…you really don’t remember their November 2012 declarations, do you? When the ascended gear got introduced, they definitely weren’t intending to stop at this. The first promise that ascended will stay the BiS tier came only at the time of HoT reveal – that’s nearly 2 and a half years later.

Now, ask yourself, why they decided to stop the hamster wheel after ascended if when they introduced this tier they intended it to be only a start of vertical progression? Was it because ascended fulfilled their hopes, or because it didn’t?

Astralporing.1957:

After the announcement backlash, true. I am talking about the statements from November 2012, from around the time it got introduced. And the backlash you are talking about is exactly why those statements were later changed – because instead of helping with player retention, ascended gear made a lot of people quit, and turned out to be something a lot of those that remained strongly disliked – a situation that still had not changed.

So wait, they changed their stance on ascended equipment after the backlash in 2012 (see the links provided and check their timestamps. Their dated NOvember 2012) , but the first announcement of not increasing gear cap came with HoT? I’m confused…

Would you be so kind as to provide evidence or anything that clearly states what their intentions with ascended were before they changed their stance on the gear cap, which changed after the backlash from the community (in 2012), which supposedly happend 3 years later before HoT.

If you can’t provide some announcement or anything semi- useful that can be considered proof I’m done since I’m now almost fully convinced you are just trolling.

Astralporing.1957:

Andraus.3874:

Why are there so many threads about this? It’s easy enough to get.

If the latter was actually true, we wouldn’t have those threads.

Cyninja.2954:

You are twisting Mike O’Brian meaning and intent in the most foul way possible. He ment they will bestaying with ascended as cap gear as promissed.

…you really don’t remember their November 2012 declarations, do you? When the ascended gear got introduced, they definitely weren’t intending to stop at this. The first promise that ascended will stay the BiS tier came only at the time of HoT reveal – that’s nearly 2 and a half years later.

Now, ask yourself, why they decided to stop the hamster wheel after ascended if when they introduced this tier they intended it to be only a start of vertical progression? Was it because ascended fulfilled their hopes, or because it didn’t?

You should really not mention things that can easily be googled and researched. Yes I do remember the addition of ascended gear and the very clear statement of anet, that it would be the last tier of gear for a very long future.

For reference:

http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/13/arenanet-explains-new-ascended-item-tier/

The blog post of Lindsey Murdock on the issue:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/

Here a reddit thread on the matter.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/135lrk/arenanet_about_ascended_armor/

I’m really not sure where you get this notiion that they had plans to keep adding gear tiers. If at all they were VERY clear on that ascended would be the top tier for a LONG time to be. Anything else after the ascended anouncement backlash would have been suicide.

Again, you are either deliberately twisting facts or not doing research.

GummiBear.2756:

Lemuria.3195:

Kenjo.9651:

Even if Ascended stats were lowered to exotic level, you wouldn’t lose the reward. The reward is in the infusion slots.

Sadly, this isn’t entirely true. Ascended jewelry cannot be equipped with gemstones, and thus can’t have their stats improved beyond infusions which only give +5 to a single stat at best. They make up for this by having their gemstone equivalent rolled into their primary stat for the jewelry.

If you made them give the same stats, they would be worse than an upgraded masterwork version.

I guess you haven’t heard about WvW +5 stat infusions…

WvW stat infusions have no agony bonuses, unlike the crafted ones you can make which have both. They also cost laurels, at 5 for the cheapest stat. You’ll need a total of 70 laurels to get a stat on every item.

Kenjo.9651:

Ascended gear was originally intended for Fractals, with the purpose of giving added bonuses from infusions. The stat increase was to cater to all the crybabies from other MMO’s that wanted gear to grind. It never needed a stat boost.

The stat bonus is a reward for the effort involved in making the gear. It’s a 5% increase, so it’s not drastic enough to cause major balancing issues but it’s a nice touch for people who have spent the huge amounts of time and gold to invest in a set.

The real question you need to ask yourselves is why do you want to remove something that people worked hard to earn, when it clearly doesn’t have as great an impact on gameplay as you might like to believe?

5% per player might not be much for the indivdual but take a 30vs30 zerg in wvw if one zerg is pure exotic geared, the other full ascedended, then we talking 150%

True, and the zerg running the most Sentinel, Soldiers, Knight and Valkyrie would win since WvW gets decided by who get’s downed/killed first. All of these stats are essentially useless in PvE.

So now we are talking about a fully geared zerg with all members getting useless stats for anything but WvW AND spending 70 laurels having a slight advantage over the other side.

And that’s not even considering team composition or tactics and how able the commanders on both sides are. Factors which are WAY more important in ZvZ fights.

I don’t see the argument. :?

Astralporing.1957:

I guess you haven’t heard about WvW +5 stat infusions…

Making the ascended equipment useless for fractals, the only part where it actually matters. I’m sure most people do this.

Astralporing.1957:

Which theory? That the introduction of ascended did not slow down player hemorrhage? You have proof in the very game design you bring up.

When ascended gear was introduced, the devs clearly said that it was only a start of vertical gear progression which they intended to continue. At HoT introduction however, the same Mike O’Brian who around Ascended release said people that thought there will be no new gear tiers are naive, clearly stated that BiS eq will remain BiS (and that he fully expected for the crowd to storm the stage if he said otherwise). That shift in design can be only attributed to ascended not fulfilling their purpose. And since their only purpose was player retention…

You are twisting Mike O’Brian meaning and intent in the most foul way possible. He ment they will bestaying with ascended as cap gear as promissed.

To review how gearing evolved in GW2:

-> game gets introduced as not going to work on power creep and not introducing a gear treadmill
-> game launches with exotic tier as max
-> people reach cap gear sooner then anet predicted
-> ascended armor is slowly introduced into the game over a 1 year time periond. anet explains that they expected exotic gear to take longer so they have to add a gear tier
-> many people are upset (myself included) but either learn to accept it or leave the game
-> ncsoft even offers people refunds on their game
- HoT gets announced and a dev tells the community that they will stick to their addapted manifesto of not increasing the gear cap

To in any shape or form come to the conclusion that they are not introducing a new equipment cap from this timeline or chain of events is shameful. It either means you twist events or willfully ommit parts of this chain to unsuccessfully make a point (if you were aware of how ascended got introduced).

Or you were unaware and to lazy to even do a simple background check on the topic you are arguing. Both are unacceptable in my opinion.

Thuggernaut.1250:

Cyninja.2954:

Wall of text crits you for 9,000,000 damage.

Also, opinion piece. GW2 has surpassed the GW1 playerbase by far and has to deal with way tougher competition than GW1 ever had.

Just to contest this point: GW1 came out less than 6 months after World of Warcraft, which was the hottest thing since sliced bread at the time. Still is, in some circles. It’s a shock that GW1 did as well as it ended up doing, given the competition that it faced at the time.

GW2 has it much easier. Everyone that wants to play WoW already is playing it, so GW2 has a free hand in other markets. After the big failures of SWTOR and ESO, GW2 really can romp freely in the "non-WoW " market. We all see how well the “Archeage” threat played out.

We could get into very many details of hows and whys. But basing your opinion on 1 game is not very solid.

MMOs don’t exist in an isolated space. They contest with many other games on many different systems. True, when GW1 came out WoW was starting up and growing strong, but it certainly was not the powerhouse every one knows it to be from about 2-3 years after it’s launch and during it’s BC or WotlK days.

What did not exist were smartphone games, shifts from the pc gaming market to consol (thanks god we have steam to keep pc gaming at least partly interesting, a huge indie game community, more f2p MMOs you could ever name in an hour (especially tripple A MMOs that go f2p and prosper) and last but not least a growing distaste for MMOs.

When GW1 came out, MMOS were the next big thing. Everyone was getting on the bandwagon shortly after in the gaming industry since people were flocking en mass to that genre. Now you can literally taste how saturated people are from MMOs.

So no, I don’t think GW1 had it in a lot harder than GW2 based solely on how WoW did. Wow is not all and everything and the gaming market is far more complex and shifting.

Wall of text crits you for 9,000,000 damage.

Also, opinion piece. GW2 has surpassed the GW1 playerbase by far and has to deal with way tougher competition than GW1 ever had.

Fermi.2409:

Cyninja.2954:

It’s quite accurate, but less so than most believe. For example, for 400-500 crafting the guide does not take into account the necessary craftig of bloodstone bricks, etc. which you could use to skillup since you’ll need them at 500 anyway (unless you plan to buy all the mats on the TP)..

The point of the site is to get to whatever level you’re after as quickly as possible, so of course they’re not going to count making loads of bloodstone bricks to level.

Untrue. There is a normal guide which gives you the cheapest route to your target skill level, and then there is a fast guide which skips minor steps to speed up the process. You are missinformed sir.

Wanze.8410:

There either is a bug involved between inscriptions and insignias or you all talking quaggan foo.

I am just testing with weapons and didnt check armor recently, last log about 6 months ago. But I will put in some buy orders for some exotic crafted armor with salvageable stats. Might be a bug or undocumented patch that I am not aware of.

To make things interesting, I will send 100g per mail to the account that first links video evidence of him/her, salvaging any inscription off a crafted lvl 80 pearl exotic weapon.

Edit: insignia->inscription in dare offer, cant salvage an insignia from any weapon.

I had the same thought. I know it works on armor 100% but can’t be sure on weapons atm since I’ve leved wc over a year ago. Will be interesting to see results and report to anet.

If there is indeed a difference this could be put down as a bug and should get looked at and fixed.

Wanze.8410:

Cyninja.2954:

Wanze.8410:

Cyninja.2954:

Also the guide does not take into account possible salvaged insignias or inscriptions frome exotic items for example which you have a chance of retaining if you salvaged the finished item.

you cant salvage inscriptions from crafted exotics.

Yes you can, you can’t salvage inscriptions from exotics from craftable inscriptions. That’s a difference.

Edit:
Let me clarify:

Exotic 1: built from a craftable inscription gets salvaged -> inscriptions is not recovered

Exotic 2: built with an inscription from a drop exotic that has no recepie and is thus not craftable -> the used inscription might get salvaged and can be reused or sold

How do I know? because I’ve done so in the past.

I am pretty sure you are wrong or must have made a wrong observation while doing so.

Just for clarification: You wont be able to salvage an exotic inscription off any exotic crafted weapon (pearl weapons).

How do i know? I have a spreadsheet with over 2300 results for salvaged exotic weapons (and for over 3000 exotic armor pieces) and probably have over 5000 unlogged salvages of exotic gear.
To make sure, i just put in a couple of buy orders for pearl weapons, crafted from salvaged inscriptions. So far, i made 13 salvages and didnt get any inscription.

I haven’t done weapon in a while, I did exactly that with armor and insignias not even 2 weeks ago while leveling my armorsmith to 500. If you still don’t believe me, ask a dev to check my logs.

If it doesn’t work on weapons that would be a bug or divergance from armors. The wiki must get updated too since it evens tates so that it works.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Salvage

Quote:

Exotic items can produce Globs of Ectoplasm and Globs of Dark Matter. Exotic weapons and armor with non-craftable prefixes also have a chance to produce an inscription or insignia for that prefix.

As far as my observation, I crafted from 400-500 with the help of gw2crafts.net and after I hit 500 I salvaged all the exotics I had made and proceeded to sell the ectos and returned Insignias on the TP. got about 7-8 back and my net cost was reduced to way less than what gw2crafts said it would cost me to hit 500.

Astralporing.1957:

SkyFallsInThunder.8257:

sorudo.9054:

Caedmon.6798:

sorudo.9054:

Caedmon.6798:

Because you have a 100b at 1500 range while being able to move around and projectiles following targets,compare that to the actual 100b skill of gs which roots you in place and has a 130 range and is incredibly difficult to fully land it on a person,and you might understand why some weaps have a higher base stats than others.

i move around all the time with the GS…..what are you talking about with the “root in place” part?

Sorry,i meant the GS for warrior in this case when i made the comparison about 100b rooting you into place when using it.

nop, still the same, i still move around with my warrior (GS main).
the only one who is really rooted in place is the ranger but that’s it.

The warrior greatsword skill #2, called Hundred Blades (or 100b in short), roots you in place. You cannot channel it while moving. If you start it and then move, the skill stops…

But you can still move. “root” is when you cannot move due to a skill you used. See ranger sword on auto, for example, or sylvari elite turret skill.

Just a technicality and of no consequence in this disscussion. While technically you are correct that the term ist mostly used in conjunction with negative effects from enemys (see http://mmos.com/mmo-terms#R , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowd_control_%28video_gaming%29) this is a non issue.

The 100b GS warrior skill is for all means and purposes a selfimposed root (we could also call it a soft root) if you want to get the full effect from the attack. Being able to move and cancle the attack is not relevant to the disscussion since in that case the attack does less damage and would thus be automatically balanced even if greatswords have higher weapon coefficients.

Wanze.8410:

Cyninja.2954:

Also the guide does not take into account possible salvaged insignias or inscriptions frome exotic items for example which you have a chance of retaining if you salvaged the finished item.

you cant salvage inscriptions from crafted exotics.

Yes you can, you can’t salvage inscriptions from exotics from craftable inscriptions. That’s a difference.

Edit:
Let me clarify:

Exotic 1: built from a craftable inscription gets salvaged → inscriptions is not recovered

Exotic 2: built with an inscription from a drop exotic that has no recepie and is thus not craftable → the used inscription might get salvaged and can be reused or sold

How do I know? because I’ve done so in the past.

It can be a bit confusing in the begining yes, once understood though it’s easy.

Read up dulfys guide and you should be good:

http://dulfy.net/2013/11/28/gw2-agony-infusions-slot-and-agony-resist-guide/

With 2 rings and an amulet you will be able to reach 15 agony resist easy (10 is required for fractal level 10-19 content) and eventually 25 agony resist once your rings have the infusion slot (though you’ll be lacking the soulbound materials at first to upgrade your rings). Most people settle on getting +20 agony resist total from rings (10 each from +5 agony infusion and versatile simple infusion, though you could go higher).

From there aim to get the rest of the trinkets and eventually weapons. It will take some time though since fractal relics are slow to come by at lower fractal levels.

maddoctor.2738:

DarkWasp.7291:

As far as we can tell, HoT is all raid/Silverwastes-like content.

So the damage difference between a full ascended zerker vs a full exotic zerker = roughly 14% (remember that 5% gets multiplied through crit damage, scholar runes and traits)

It’s bigger than most people think, but a full group of skilled exotic zerkers would still kill stuff faster than we’ve ever seen.

The real case of gearism is as follows:

1. Someone in half rampagers, one piece level 78, the rest mixed and matched. Trinkets not exotic or even level 60.
2. Someone in full ascended Nomad gear (assuming HoT doesn’t present a scenario new to GW2 where a tank is required in PvE)

Both of these cases run the risk of scaling enemies’ HP pools beyond what the player can dish out within the time limit. So in other words, their presence is a burden to everyone around.

That is why it is absolutely important to strive maximize your potential. If you fail and die, you learn. If you waypoint away instead of lying around dead, you won’t get yelled at. Get the highest damage gear you can handle and USE your skills. An ele in Soldier gear who uses ice bow and lava font is going to do more DPS than an ele in Berserker gear who only casts fireball.

This is why the Beekeeper at Vinewrath is often the longest boss fight. South is the lazy lane and the new player lane. Experienced players who are paying more attention are more likely to fight the thrasher or terragrif because they want their reward so they go where they are needed most.

Once you get into the mindset of improving your build, trying new things, letting go of what doesn’t work and honing your skills, you’ll find yourself totally capable in exotic gear. However, at that point you’ll find the game less frustrating, profits easier to make and you may just have worked up the dedication to enjoy the trek toward ascended gear.

Difference between Ascended / Exotic 2-handed weapon: 9/6/6
Difference between Ascended / Exotic Armor (full set): 14/11/11
Difference between Ascended / Exotic trinkets (all 6): 62/31/31
Difference between Ascended / Exotic trinkets (no back): 55/27/27

I’m only going to add here that getting Ascended Amulet, Rings and Accessories is very easy and those trinkets provide the highest attribute boost.

It’s better and more reasonable to calculate the difference between a full ascended and a exotic + ascended trinket person.

This! Though the armor difference and increased weapon damage should also be mentioned. I’m just going to leave this link again because I like repeating myself and we all know no ones actually reads though topics besides the first 3 posts and maybe the last one. :/

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/159ml1oahEyM6zWQ-oD4XQcHsk1mI5G6tVnjk_FOeinA/edit?pli=1#gid=348011649 .

Don’t want ascended armor or weapons? Then just get the trinkets and you are more than golden.

It’s quite accurate, but less so than most believe. For example, for 400-500 crafting the guide does not take into account the necessary craftig of bloodstone bricks, etc. which you could use to skillup since you’ll need them at 500 anyway (unless you plan to buy all the mats on the TP).

Also the guide does not take into account possible salvaged insignias or inscriptions frome exotic items for example which you have a chance of retaining if you salvaged the finished item.

There might be more such examples at lower levels. Just fyi. Aside from that, the guide and page is solid.

Ayrilana.1396:

Cyninja.2954:

Ayrilana.1396:

Cyninja.2954:

That is not even counting the fact that the moment you step into areas sub 80 your ascended get isntantly downgraded to exotic quality.

It was something along the lines of:
1-39 -> you get downgraded to Masterwork maximum
40-59 -> you get downgraded to Rare
60-79 -> you get downgraded to Exotic
80 -> here you get your ascended bonus compared to exotic
(this section is for those theorycrafting on how downgrading works)

How sure are you? Have you actually checked this yourself or are you relying on what someone else said and just assumed it to be true?

(I will also add, which I forgot to, that I had read Wethospu’s reddit post months ago)

Since you mention the reddit thread let me link to it, saves me the time to explain.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2mgibt/why_ascended_gear_is_a_big_joke_in_pve/

This is something that can easily be reproduced. Just visit a lower level area, exchange you ascended to equal stat exotics and see for yourself. I did not go out of my way to recheck every stat combo or get full masterwork sets.

What is mentioned in the thread though about exotics even being more useful (since you can carry around different ones with different Sigils/Runes) is just the the icying (an exotic with +10% damage to certain enemy type wins over an ascended with +5% flat damage bonus for example). So here we are, people crying over ascended, when exotics might even be more useful for a huge part of the PvE content. Ironic really.

This downgrading only applies to the weapons, in relation to weapon strength, and not the other ascended equipment. This was what spurred my original post.

Good point, hence why he goes into the attribute cap in his second point where he explains how there are maximum attribute states. Ascended gear will get you caped making buff food, stats from traits, sigil and runes obsolete. Since you cap with ascended and gain no benefit from such items, a player in exotic gear can easily use buff food to compensate and be just as effective as someone in full ascended.

DarkWasp.7291:

snip

True, but your point has more to do with people afking content and others having to pick up their slack. Yes, having ascended gear will make it easier to compensate for others auto attacking a boss and not fully participating in a fight.

We also do not know on what basis the game will get balanced in HoT. So far rares and exotics have been more than sufficient to complete all ingame content (besides high level fractals due to agony, and even that was only added in the fractured release and was not the case before).

Ayrilana.1396:

Cyninja.2954:

That is not even counting the fact that the moment you step into areas sub 80 your ascended get isntantly downgraded to exotic quality.

It was something along the lines of:
1-39 -> you get downgraded to Masterwork maximum
40-59 -> you get downgraded to Rare
60-79 -> you get downgraded to Exotic
80 -> here you get your ascended bonus compared to exotic
(this section is for those theorycrafting on how downgrading works)

How sure are you? Have you actually checked this yourself or are you relying on what someone else said and just assumed it to be true?

(I will also add, which I forgot to, that I had read Wethospu’s reddit post months ago)

Since you mention the reddit thread let me link to it, saves me the time to explain.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2mgibt/why_ascended_gear_is_a_big_joke_in_pve/

This is something that can easily be reproduced. Just visit a lower level area, exchange you ascended to equal stat exotics and see for yourself. I did not go out of my way to recheck every stat combo or get full masterwork sets.

What is mentioned in the thread though about exotics even being more useful (since you can carry around different ones with different Sigils/Runes) is just the the icying (an exotic with +10% damage to certain enemy type wins over an ascended with +5% flat damage bonus for example). So here we are, people crying over ascended, when exotics might even be more useful for a huge part of the PvE content. Ironic really.

Welcome to the game! Here some pointers to get you started:

- server selection is not as important as it used to be (we have huge mega servers now for most of the pve). World versus world (WvW) is still server dependant though. If you have friends, try to join them, otherwise any medium to high server is a good bet.

- get creative with the character creator. Running a standard human toon might be tempting, but do check out the other races. They are all awesome.

- give multiple classes a shot. But understand that the biggest differences in playstyle come at advanced levels (30+ and above) when more skills and mechanics are unlocked.

- try to tank and spank some enemy!

- great, now that you died, try to use the dodge roll to avoid enemy attacks. Get to love your endurance bar and the dodge mechanic it provides. Rember, dodging is life, doging is love!

- take you time with leveling. I’m dead serious. Walk around, check out the beautiful maps, try to explore EVERYTHING! You’d be suprised how often you’ll find jumping puzzles, hidden locations, beautiful sights far off the normal road.

- While I main a mesmer and love the class over all others, try to stay clear of following classes for a start: Mesmer, Elementalist and Engineer. Those three classes have by far the highest skill ceiling and some very unique mechanics. The easiest to get used to is probably Warrior followed by Ranger and Guardian. Thief and Necromancer should be considered intermediate (though Thief is very twitchy).

- do what ever you feel like. Just about everything gives experience and you should just follow your own preferances. You’ll hit 80 sooner than you expect, but the journey there and from there is what it’s all about.

Have Fun!

I think your main problem might be getting her dead in the time frame. There should be tones of builds able to kill her, just need enough defensive cooldowns.

Not sure how she scales on solo player. You do have to kill her 2 times after all.

Only because it’s your first message doesn’t mean it’s your accounts first message of the day. I mean all those goldseller spammers have to hack some ones accounts.

On a more serious note, how many achievement points does your second account have and how old is it. There are certain limitations tied to new accounts especially as far as messaging is concerned. Some of those you can read up on here: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Account

Notice how you are also very limited on the amount of gold you are allowed to mail on new accounts.

Astralporing.1957:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Maybe you should go back and look at why ascended gear was added in the first place.

Hint: there would be no one here to play with if they didn’t add it.

That’s actually not true. If anything, ascended introduction only increased the rate at which people were leaving the game in the beginning. The player hemorrhage slowed and stopped only after Living Story started.
And that’s why we don’t have next tiers of gear in the game after ascended, even if when that tier got introduced, they did intend to continue with vertical progression later on.

I call hear say. The game was bleeding people left and right who could not find something to do at maximum level since decking out in exotics took about 2 weeks. The living content at most halted the bleeding a little, but even that was not enough. Why do you think anet switched to an expansion model again?

Give some statistics or proof since the game developement and direction it’s headed does not support your theory.

Astralporing.1957:

Cyninja.2954:

Astralporing.1957:

alwinp.2791:

Why can’t you people just assume the fact that ascended changes NOTHING except giving players a goal to work for.

i wouldn’t call ~+20% dps bonus on zerkers (full exo vs full ascended) to be nothing. Besides, the problem goes beyond mere stats – it changes the core ideology behind the game away from things i bought this game for.

Exagerate much? Here read up:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/159ml1oahEyM6zWQ-oD4XQcHsk1mI5G6tVnjk_FOeinA/edit?pli=1#gid=348011649

It’s 10% and that is with a majority of this bonus comming from trinkets (the easiest to aquire ascended),a medium part from weapons (the in between ascended), and a very minor part from armor (the by far biggest chunk with lowest return).

Okay, adding might stacks, fury and other buffs does change the calculation a bit, downplaying the effect of ascended. Still, +11% is still a significant bonus. Actually, to think of it, if you are a person that always fights with full buffs, then +11% dps (well, +12.5%, since you’d likely have infusions as well) is definitely a huge bonus.

Cyninja.2954:

Games change, ascended is here to stay. Learn to deal with it and enjoy the game or not, your call.

As you say, games change. It changed once in a way that i dislike due to few people crying, so i see no reason why it couldn’t change the other way someday if i won’t give up on it.

Again, exagerate much. Almost no one who has full ascended uses full infusions. Most people, like myself pop a +5 agony resist in the slot and are done with it.

But let’s assume you do fully infuse every slot for maximum stats (5 to stat per slot). Thats another about 3,000 gold for around 80-84 power. Here let me spell it out, 3,000 !!!!! gold for the last 1% increase.

And that is not even considering that the first around 8% come from trinkets alone (which are dirty easy to get and require only a time commitment, are tradable between characters and cost almost no gold).

As is right now, ascended has got to be one of the closest things to get added that appeases both worlds, those who want to stop at exotic tier and those min/maxing for BiS. That is not even counting the fact that the moment you step into areas sub 80 your ascended get isntantly downgraded to exotic quality.

It was something along the lines of:
1-39 → you get downgraded to Masterwork maximum
40-59 → you get downgraded to Rare
60-79 → you get downgraded to Exotic
80 → here you get your ascended bonus compared to exotic
(this section is for those theorycrafting on how downgrading works)

WilnerGW.3275:

Hey guys;

I have 158% magic find now, and i am thinking about invest some gold to get it to at least 250%. What you guys think?

Since i do12-15 dungeons paths/day, do you think i will get my gold back?
How about the cost, how much gold will i spent to increases ~100% MF? whats the best method? the Ectoplasm Globs?

I want opinions from players that have 250%+ MF, about the rare loots they are getting. Is it worth it?

Thx

There are threads on reddit like this one: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1lu7my/the_price_of_luckectodustluck/

Comes out at about:
TLDR: 39 Gold = 53000 Luck Points!(~106 Luck Per Ecto)

You might have to do your own math though since those ecto prices where a tad higher.

As to is it worth it? Short anser: No. Longer anser: still No.

Weylin.6478:

Hmm, I tried searching before posting this, but the search function is a bit broken and scatters the text everywhere.

I’m reading a lot of the posts of the naysayers, and really, most of those issues of dev time, stupidity of how they look, and frivolous nature of the mounts could be dealt with.

Hence the sticky at the top of the forum by Gaile Gray with following suggestion:

[b]Due to limitations within the current forum search engine, we want to suggest an alternative that may improve your search results and help you find the posts or threads you are seeking.

Type the following in the Google search bar (without any brackets):
site:[the url of the subforum you want to search in] [your search terms]

For the core forums and the GW2 Discussion sub-forum (dropping the “HTTP://), the URLs would be:

English: forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum
English GW2 Discussion: forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2

French: forum-fr.guildwars2.com/forum
French GW2 Discussion: forum-fr.guildwars2.com/forum/game/game

German: forum-de.guildwars2.com/forum
German GW2 Discussion: forum-de.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2

Spanish: forum-es.guildwars2.com/forum
Spanish GW2 Discussion: forum-es.guildwars2.com/forum/game/game
[/b]

Weylin.6478:

Yes, there’s better things that can be added, isn’t there always? Mounts are by no means a priority, because they don’t solve a problem, if anything, they create more problems.

If done correctly, mounts have the potential to add depth and further variety to the game, and wouldn’t it be nice if GW2 steered clear of the #%^&ty mounts system that at least a dozen other MMO’s employ?

Seriously, it CAN be done right, they just need to be innovative.

No one says it can’t be done right. That was never the issue. The issue is a majority of players don’t want them. Read up on what happens when a developer implements things the player base don’t want. CCP with Eve Online and their Incarna expansion should be a good read.

And yes, there are many more important things. Thank god those are getting done.

You’ve been given reasons by others and provided ressources to read up and get answeres to your topic. Yes, even the inovative reasoning and suggestions and justification you gave have been given and responded to (notice the sarcasm).

There is enough mmos out there that provide mounts. Far more than those who stay clear of them.
I’m done with the thread, seems to me more and more like one of those:“I want this so do it. Everyone else is supposed to see it my way. Let’s change the game.” threads.

Weylin.6478:

Is it really that they don’t want them, or they’re just trolling with 1 line responses and pictures of beating a horse?

They aren’t even a productive counter-argument, just a flat “no”

With all the details I laid out, there’s no discussion, just troll posts? C’mon.

Read the thread, there are a lot of arguments in there against mounts. People are sick and tired and lazy of reposting them over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over and over again.

Just like you were to lazy to check if this topic has been made before. Here are some more threads for refference:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Incoming-Mounts/first
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/So-when-do-we-get-mounts/first
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/What-Would-Mounts-do-for-this-Game
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/future-possibility-of-mounts/first
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/suggestions/Mounts-17
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/suggestions/mounts-and-flying-mounts
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/suggestions/Merged-Think-Mounts-outside-the-box
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/suggestions/Why-no-mounts/first
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/suggestions/flying-mounts-1
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/No-Mounts

Edite: sorry Behellagh, I didn’t quote you. Just copyied the links.

Astralporing.1957:

alwinp.2791:

Why can’t you people just assume the fact that ascended changes NOTHING except giving players a goal to work for.

i wouldn’t call ~+20% dps bonus on zerkers (full exo vs full ascended) to be nothing. Besides, the problem goes beyond mere stats – it changes the core ideology behind the game away from things i bought this game for.

Exagerate much? Here read up:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/159ml1oahEyM6zWQ-oD4XQcHsk1mI5G6tVnjk_FOeinA/edit?pli=1#gid=348011649

It’s 10% and that is with a majority of this bonus comming from trinkets (the easiest to aquire ascended),a medium part from weapons (the in between ascended), and a very minor part from armor (the by far biggest chunk with lowest return).

Games change, ascended is here to stay. Learn to deal with it and enjoy the game or not, your call.

Weylin.6478:

Wouldn’t one think that with so many people suggesting it that they may take it more seriously?

I’m not sure what their reasons are, or why I can’t get any of my friends to play because of a thing like this.

You mean the 1 person suggesting it and then getting shot down by 10-20 people? Yes, they are indeed listening to their player base. The majority of which stands with:“We don’t need or want them. There are more important things to spend ressources on.”

roguenub.1409:

With the current state of the game and its bugs, do you think with the release of HoT, that it hopes to get us to forget these problems? Or are we just at the point of just tolerating the broken content and expect things to never get fixed? I’m speaking of stuff like :

- Grenth teleporting you behind walls / terrain, forcing you to relog to fix yourself

- Dwayna getting pushed into a corner and clipping through the wall and becoming ‘obstructed’ for ranged

- Melandru events bugging out almost every week

- AC burrows putting you through walls when you destroy them while on top of the burrows. Grast dying in p3, people waypointing ahead and breaking the dungeon

- Things being obstructed even with a direct visible path to the target

- Personal story bugs, fractal bugs, dungeon bugs, profession bugs

Just some of things from the top of my head, and the list goes on. Any hope some of this content will be fixed or even reworked to be more interesting, or will HoT just make the core content a thing of the past?

While I would not go as far as saying the game is bug free, I have never experienced these mentioned bugs, even while playing since launch.

Yes, clipping bugs exist, but It’s been a long time since I’ve encountered one. Post release I would clip through the ground almost 1 out of 3 times with my mesmer. Those times are long gone.

Things being obstructed does happen, usually due to something small being in the way or elivation. Doubt this will get fixed for every single object, just reposition.