Guild Wars 2

If tribulation mode is indeed IWBTG hard, the forums will be a fun place to be once it’s released, specially if there are achievements and/or rewards associated to it (well, we do know already of the different colored weapons)…

Fun times incoming..

As far as we know, the weapons will be account bound on crafting, soulbound on use, but the time gated materials used for their crafting won’t be so you’ll be able to get them on the TP.

Invasion always occur in the overflow as long as you join within 10 minutes of it starting. They start every hour, on the hour, so as long as you join the map within 10 minutes past the hour you should always get an overflow where it’s happening (at least I’ve always gotten it).

If you miss it, you can also ask around guildies and friends for someone that is in an active invasion overflow, party with them, and join their overflow. I’ve had friends join with 10 minutes left on the clock and it still counted for their achievements.

I like how they look, but will probably still transmute over it anyway. My guardian, for example (who gets first dibs on any new gear) uses power, prec and toughness as main stats… but really the only of those that would fit with his armor style is the white one, but not interested in healing for his build and no way I’m going to craft a time gated ascended weapon just for the skin, so I’ll just transmute to other skin that fits better (currently the guild commendation greatsword).

Farzo.8410:

It’s not in this game (yet) but what I truly hate is automated dungeon tools that teleports you to the dungeon. Such ‘features’ that exist in World of Warcraft, like LFD, and LFR.

I really hate it.

From what I’ve read, you won’t dislike the one they’re working on here. The way it was described on an mmorpg.com article was that the tool would allow you to see groups forming or put yourself as looking for group for specific dungeons or for fractal, but will have no automatic group forming (you have to talk or join groups yourself) and no automatic dungeon teleporting. So it seems it’ll mostly be the same functionality that the website offers but in game.

BTW, I also hate that, the perfect LFG tool in an MMO for me was like the one on WoW around TBC, no automatic group forming or teleporting to dungeon, you just saw groups forming or people listed as looking for group for specific dungeons and had to whisper them to ask for an invite or send one.

Rozbuska.5263:

Charr armor quality

This is a big one for mine, specially when it comes to medium. There are lots of good looking armor (IMHO), but only like 3 or 4 that actually take into account that charr have a tail.

Cactus.2710:

locoman.1974:

Cactus.2710:

locoman.1974:

sostronk.8167:

Its not random. In one event I did, I was literally the only person she spawned on and it was directly on top of me knocking me down instantly. At the end when we killed her, she also spawned on me. She killed me around 15 times. The one coincidence was that in that round I fully DPS her at the start of the event and she despawned after saying she was putting me on her list. I believe there is a trigger where if you attack her she will lock on you. But if your the only one during the event who attacks her your in for a rough ride because she will only spawn on you. If others attack she may spawn on them instead. No way its a coincidence that she can only spawn on me for an entire event with hundreds of people on the map.

I don’t think it depends on the wether you attack her or not, as I said I do believe it’s random whoever she picks, but once she does, she keeps at them for the whole event (even spawn on them when the event ends and you have to kill her). She did it to me, spawned at least 8 times (most likely more since I had to leave the computer a few times and my char was in a different spot than where I left it), and I was just crafting in the zone, never did any of the events, attacked her or any mob related to the invasion at all.

I don’t think it’s random at all. When it happened to my wife she happened to hit Scarlet hard early in the event, at which point the emote happened. After that, Scarlet clearly homed in on her over everyone else every time … even attacked her out in the open once where there wasn’t an invasion at all.

I had pretty much the same thing happen to me in a later event. I happened to be the only one hitting Scarlet for a while the first time she spawned and got the emote about being put on her list. After that, she spawned on top of me several times, although as a Thief I could usually escape via stealth (Blinding Powder since it’s quick).

That’s the thing, I’ve gotten the same emote (being put on her list and stuff) without doing any damage at all. I was crafting in ebonhawke, had the TP and bank windows open covering most of the screen doing a checklist of all the materials I needed to level artificing to 400 and buying the ones I didn’t have when I noticed the screen below those windows start to move around, I closed them just in time to see scarlet hit my character again (I hadn’t even noticed the invasion had started on that map) say the “I’ve put you on my list” thing and dissapear, never once attacked her, there was nobody else around, and there wasn’t even any portal open nearby. After that she kept spawning on me, I had other things to do so I parked the character next to the ebonhawke waypoint, and sure enough when the event ended that’s where she spawned for everyone to kill.

Hhmmm … interesting. I wonder if there had been an open portal nearby and Scarlet simply didn’t have anyone other than you to attack. It is possible to solo close a portal (like the tunneling ones), so maybe an individual or small group closed one and then split before Scarlet spawned. Just speculating …

There was no portal nearby (I checkec as soon as she dissapeared). Ebonhawke is in the lower left corner of the map, all portals were from the middle and up of the map and a few on the lower right corner, but there was no portals or invasion related mobs anywhere near where I was, which is why I do think that the person she picks to follow is chosen at random.

Cactus.2710:

locoman.1974:

sostronk.8167:

Its not random. In one event I did, I was literally the only person she spawned on and it was directly on top of me knocking me down instantly. At the end when we killed her, she also spawned on me. She killed me around 15 times. The one coincidence was that in that round I fully DPS her at the start of the event and she despawned after saying she was putting me on her list. I believe there is a trigger where if you attack her she will lock on you. But if your the only one during the event who attacks her your in for a rough ride because she will only spawn on you. If others attack she may spawn on them instead. No way its a coincidence that she can only spawn on me for an entire event with hundreds of people on the map.

I don’t think it depends on the wether you attack her or not, as I said I do believe it’s random whoever she picks, but once she does, she keeps at them for the whole event (even spawn on them when the event ends and you have to kill her). She did it to me, spawned at least 8 times (most likely more since I had to leave the computer a few times and my char was in a different spot than where I left it), and I was just crafting in the zone, never did any of the events, attacked her or any mob related to the invasion at all.

I don’t think it’s random at all. When it happened to my wife she happened to hit Scarlet hard early in the event, at which point the emote happened. After that, Scarlet clearly homed in on her over everyone else every time … even attacked her out in the open once where there wasn’t an invasion at all.

I had pretty much the same thing happen to me in a later event. I happened to be the only one hitting Scarlet for a while the first time she spawned and got the emote about being put on her list. After that, she spawned on top of me several times, although as a Thief I could usually escape via stealth (Blinding Powder since it’s quick).

That’s the thing, I’ve gotten the same emote (being put on her list and stuff) without doing any damage at all. I was crafting in ebonhawke, had the TP and bank windows open covering most of the screen doing a checklist of all the materials I needed to level artificing to 400 and buying the ones I didn’t have when I noticed the screen below those windows start to move around, I closed them just in time to see scarlet hit my character again (I hadn’t even noticed the invasion had started on that map) say the “I’ve put you on my list” thing and dissapear, never once attacked her, there was nobody else around, and there wasn’t even any portal open nearby. After that she kept spawning on me, I had other things to do so I parked the character next to the ebonhawke waypoint, and sure enough when the event ended that’s where she spawned for everyone to kill.

Nuka Cola.8520:

Why did achievement chests blew you away? Its giving your the same crap with every chest. The only thing im hyped is the ascended weapons but not for the increased stat but the changeable stats (is it even possible or for legendary weps only?) and want to see how they look. I will ignore SAB as i did the first time because i want to play with my character using the skills assigned to that character and not become Mario with a wooden stick that attacks rabbits. So what will happen after update is me getting the ascended crap (whatever time it takes i dunno) and go wvw cuz they aren’t adding anything else worth mentioning

Changeable stats is only for legendary, ascended will work just like exotic do now but with higher stats.

IIRC the effects will be permanent (sort of what happens already with the achievement rewards), but the higher you go the harder will it be to increase.

Don’t remember where I read it, but I do remember a dev quote saying something that you might come to a point where your magic find is high enough that you’d need hundreds of essences just to increase it by a further 1%.

AFAIK this is how it works in general.

The achievement tracks two things: being present at the end, regardless of whether scarlet even shows up or not, and killing minions (watchwork mobs).

Killing aetherblades and molten don’t count, even if they do count for progression, so if you do an event killing only those, it won’t count for the achievement credit, even if you kill scarlet.

Also, the only watchwork mobs tracked are the ones spawned from the portals directly. The Twisted Menders can resurrect fallen watchwork mobs into Twisted Reavers (the ones with the tentacles), killing resurrected mobs won’t count either towards the achievement. It can happen if the players completed an event and left without destroying the remains and leaving a mender alive (they’re small, look like mosquitoes and barely do damage, easy to miss) he might have resurrected the rest of the mobs.

Also, there are also steam creatures that sometimes spawn during the portals, they do count towards the minions bar, but not really sure wether they count towards the achievement (just in case, assume they don’t).

A dev in the forum recommended killing at least one twisted champion and get loot from it, that way you’re sure you killed a clockwork mob that spawned from the portals (since the champions are never resurrected) and did enough participation into killing it that the game registered credit for you.

atheria.2837:

IndigoSundown.5419:

All achievements are not aimed at all players. Why? Not all players like doing the same things. This includes playing more — or less. You can still get the meta achievement without doing the 13/13 invasion maps one.

No you can’t get the achievement without doing all 13 maps – I was stuck for over a week at 7/13

Getting the last one was the ONLY way to get to the “Playhouse”.

Stop lying and go read the event notes.

I got the meta several days before getting the 13 map one (actually wasn’t even tracking it until I got the “achievement unlocked” message). It works just like on queen’s jubilee, there’s a daily achievement every day related to invasions (some I’ve seen: close X portals, kill X aetherblade/molten/twisted, kill scarlet, finish one invasion, stuff like that), that one counts as one achievement for the meta.

I am not… because I’ll be out of town on vacations (leaving on monday)..

I am anticipating the following monday, though (I get back on sunday night)..

Delvoire.8930:

direpath.4712:

Delvoire.8930:

Labor Day.

This holiday only applies to us Americans though……

I don’t see a logical reason why ANET would cater to just Americans and also change their normal patch day…

Not true. It is a stat holiday in Canada as well, possibly the UK too (?)

Yep.. I just looked it up and Canada was actually the inspiration for America to start doing Labor Day as well. They are the only two countries that do it on the first Monday of September. Others do it in October and then there is May Day too.

Learn something new every day.

Here in Venezuela (and I thin most latinamerica as well) does it on the 1st of may, “Día del Trabajador” (worker’s day)..

Why do you get that day off? (curious here)

Josh Foreman.6542:

The Tribulation Mode skins are color-shifted variants of the regular set. Each World has a color. Blue is the general SAB color (so not gained through Tribulation Mode), Green is World 1, Yellow World 2, Red World 3 and Purple World 4. This follows the Bauble value color scale. But don’t get your hopes up for getting the Tribulation color variants. Tribulation Mode is ridiculously difficult and time consuming. I don’t expect to see many green or yellow super skins out there. TM is there for a very small group of people who are into that sort of thing.

You had to make them purple, didn’t you?… my mesmer was perfectly happy with his blue super greatsword and staff and now you had to mention purple.. .now he won’t shut up until I grind the purple versions!!!

Neural.1824:

I wish NCSoft could legally negotiate with the copyright holders of a vast library of animations so they could then incorporate them into this game. The world lost a treasure when CoH was shut down.

Unless the rigging of the models (highly unlikely) and animation system was made from the beggining thinking about being able to import animation from other sources, and specifically from whatever rigging and animation system CoH used, it’d probably be easier, better looking and faster to just animate them from scratch again. And AFAIK, you can’t really copyright dance movements.

Don’t diss the carlton dance!!!..

For guiding guilds on events and missions, yes it’s worth it.

For commanding strategy on WvW, worth it.

For idling on LA, not worth it.

For leading zergs down cliffs, DEFINITIVELY WORTH IT..

(I guess it’s a good thing I don’t have one)..

IIRC it was nerfed a bit but not that much. Still, famers will go to where the money is, and right now it’s on farming champions in the invasion events. Once it’s over chances are there will be zergs again running the ember farm and the frostgorge sound champion train (to name a couple).

Brother Grimm.5176:

I certainly destroyed mine and have seen no ill effects yet.

Be my luck they will become sell-able at 1G ea…..

I’m keeping mine just in case because of this. Chances are they’re just useless inventory space takers.

Vol.5241:

Wolfheart.1938:

Galtrix.7369:

Vol.5241:

Galtrix.7369:

Even WoW had more world-changing events in it when a dragon landed in a field and put fissures in the ground forever. I’ll continue to wait for better content, but I won’t hold my breath.

Well you could ignore the landscape changes in Southsun, the lighthouse being obliterated in LA, the Lion statue being destroyed by the Mad King..

Were those permanent changes?

Yes other than the statue in LA that has been rebuilt after a few months.

I don’t even understand what they have in that spot right now. If I recall it looked like some wierd asuran structure.

It’s a holographic projector, it was used during Dragon Bash to project a holographic dragon in the sky and then a holographic version of Kiel after she won. Wonder if mad king will destroy it as well when halloween comes back, or whether they’ll put the old fointain in place before that..

A non WoW mmo with over 500k active users is considered a success (of course, I mean non WoW and non TOR budget level MMOs). 400k concurrent users is HUGE in MMO standards these days (note that it doesn’t say just active accounts, it says “online at one time”).

There’ll be a way to upgrade your exotic to ascended easily.

First you’ll need your exotic weapon (this will be the exotic precursor), and then a simmilar ascended weapon (the upgrade item), and gather the upgrade ingredients: 1 eldritch scroll, 1 gift of light, 70 mystic coins and 250 orichalcum greater blades.

Drop all the upgrade ingredients in the mystic forge. Don’t look at the result item, it is not important. Contact me in-game, I’ll give you 20 gold for it…

Use the 20 gold to buy 400 gems (a bit extra just in case), use 200 of those gems to buy 5 transmutation crystals, then you use the transmutation crystals, put the precursor and upgrade item on the window, select the precursor skin, and the upgrade item stats, and done, your exotic is now upgraded to ascended..

(Disclaimer, this is a joke, but if you still want to sell me the result for 20g I’ll be happy to pay you on tuesday.. )

Solid Gold.9310:

locoman.1974:

Solid Gold.9310:

Most of my events out of about 30 have been in overflow, and I always join within seconds of the message coming up.

Just to add, the event is always running so long as you get in fast, even in overflow.

Same here, and lots of times I even get in late and still get it. Heck, at least one time I disconnected when joining an invasion, the game wouldn’t connect back in, had to close it, open it again, and when I logged in (thinking I would have to start asking for guildies for an active overflow), got into one that had the event going.

You must be lucky, whenever I disconnect I never get back in, and I usually disconnect in the last few minutes.

Very frustrating !!

Thing is, I disconnected when it was like 5 minutes in, so I had time to get into an overflow with the event. If you disconnect in the last few minutes, you’ll be taken to an overflow without the event when you reconnect. A word of advice, group up, and add someone in your group to the friends list if you don’t know them. That way when you reconnect, you can just group with them again and join in their overflow. Since anyone that goes to the zone after the 10 minutes are past go to a different overflow it should still have enough space for you to get in.

sostronk.8167:

Its not random. In one event I did, I was literally the only person she spawned on and it was directly on top of me knocking me down instantly. At the end when we killed her, she also spawned on me. She killed me around 15 times. The one coincidence was that in that round I fully DPS her at the start of the event and she despawned after saying she was putting me on her list. I believe there is a trigger where if you attack her she will lock on you. But if your the only one during the event who attacks her your in for a rough ride because she will only spawn on you. If others attack she may spawn on them instead. No way its a coincidence that she can only spawn on me for an entire event with hundreds of people on the map.

I don’t think it depends on the wether you attack her or not, as I said I do believe it’s random whoever she picks, but once she does, she keeps at them for the whole event (even spawn on them when the event ends and you have to kill her). She did it to me, spawned at least 8 times (most likely more since I had to leave the computer a few times and my char was in a different spot than where I left it), and I was just crafting in the zone, never did any of the events, attacked her or any mob related to the invasion at all.

Tanith.5264:

And no one is immune to this, it seems. After reading the other thread about this last night I tweeted to Martin Kerstein (who was talking about playing) that Scarlet might “like” him. He responded that she’s come after him five times.

I haven’t had it happen to me as of yet. Do you have to damage her enough to trigger something, or is it just random?

I guess it’s random, she did it to me yesterday while I was crafting on fields of ruin and the invasion started. I hadn’t even noticed it started until Scarlet started to spawn on me over and over, and I never even did damage to her, and wasn’t near any event or other people so never even did damage to any invasion related mob either.

She seems to pick one character each invasion and always appear right where that character is.

Today I was crafting on ebonhawke (my favorite crafting spot because all crafting stations, bank, guild bank and TP are right next to each other, TAKE THAT VIP AREA), and the invasion started on fields of ruin…. and I hadn’t noticed (had bank and TP windows open checking if I had all materials I needed and buying the ones I didn’t) until she appeared right on top of me and started wacking me around. I attributed it to randomness, as I didn’t have any event or even any other character nearby, and continued with my shopping… and she did it again… and again… and again.

In total she did it at least 8 times (probably more, I had to step off the computer for a while and when I came back my character wasn’t where I left it).

One interesting thing, she did appear right next to me when the event ended and we had to kill her, and there was nobody else around so I guess that’s how she picks where to appear in the event ending, so a quick PSA, if you happen to be lucky to pick her attention, go near an uncontested waypoint when the event is about to end.

According to the patch notes, the invasions will continue but at a much reduced frequency.

At least according to dulfy, ascended weapons (and legendaries) will have both a sigil slot and an infusion slot.

The only preparation I’ve done is to level up crafting on my characters to 400, something I was already planning to do in the first place but after the announcement I’m giving priority to weaponsmith (done), huntsman (done last night) and aritificing (already bought the few materials I didn’t already have, will level it up tonight).

Any other thing I need in the future, I’ll just keep grabbing and using as I play the game.

The minion bar lowers when killing minion mobs (watchwork and I think steam creatures, not 100% sure on that). When killing them, even if the event is over, stay and finish killing everything that spawned. Completing the event doesn’t directly count to lower the bar (but you’ll complete it by killing them anyway).

The second bar that shows up on waves 2 and 3 (aetherblade and molten) lowers on event completion, when an event is done, don’t stay around, run away even if there are still mobs around.

Scarlet will pick someone at random and keep spawning where that person during the whole event. When the event ends and you have to kill her, she will also spawn right on top of that person as well, so if you’re the lucky one, try to be near an uncontested waypoint when it happens.

There doesn’t seem to be any pattern as to why does she pick someone, I was on ebonhawke today crafting when the event started on fields of ruin, and I hadn’t even noticed it had started until Scarlet spawned and started wacking me around, I wasn’t near any event or zerg when it happened. She did it at least 8 more times during the event. I had to do other things so I parked the character next to the ebonhawke waypoint and sure enough, that’s where she spawned at the end of the event.

Actual patch notes, they’ll most likely be released as usual a few hours (at most) before the patch is released

Other than that, this is the official release page:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/september-03-2013/

DJRiful.3749:

kokiman.2364:

Algreg.3629:

de-brony some of the legendaries while you are at it, especially Quip :P

de-what?

Brony is term for those cartoon unicorn horses if you ever seen those meme. He simply said remove those unicorn horses.

But Quip doesn’t have unicorn horses..

You will be behind compared to the ones that will grind their way to make sure they get the ascended the exact first day it’s available to be made, you’ll be ahead of those that don’t care about ascendeds, and around the middle between everyone else… just as usual IMHO..

Actually you will be able to upgrade your exotic to ascended.

First you’ll need your exotic weapon, this is the precursor and an equivalent ascended weapon (the upgrade item).

The materials you’ll need are 1 eldritch scroll, 100 mystic coins, 250 ancient scepter globs and 250 globs of ectoplasm.

Drop those on the mystic forge, take the item you get as a result (it is not important) and put it on the TP for 10g, it’ll sell right away (if it doesn’t, let me know, I’ll give you 20g for it.. )

Use those 10g to purchase around 200 gems, use those gems to purchase 5 transmutation crystals

Use the transmutation crystals, place the precursor on one side, the upgrade item on the other, select the upgrade item stats and the precursor looks, and you’re done, now it’s upgraded..

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

locoman.1974:

Legendaries are getting a second change, you will be able to change weapon stats off combat, so if you wanted to you could have a sentinel ascended legendary, then change it to a berserker ascended legendary, back to sentinel and so on.

A second change this up coming patch?

AFAIK yes, I’ll try to find a source.

EDIT: from the next patch information site:

Legendary weapons are getting a stat boost and an Offensive Infusion slot to align with the new Ascended weapons! Legendaries are also receiving additional functionality: When out of combat, Legendary weapon bearers will be able to choose between different stat combinations for your weapon.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/september-03-2013/

Kal Spiro.9745:

locoman.1974:

Kal Spiro.9745:

locoman.1974:

Let’s put the gold to exchange ratio in 5g for 100gems (it was around 4 last time I checked), 5 transmutation crystals are 200 gems, so you’re basically paying 2g for each one (or 1.6 if you buy 800 gems and buy 25 crystals).

If tomorrow they were to delete the crystals from the store and add a vendor that offers them for 2g… what would be the difference? Or you just want a cheaper way to obtain them?

If you look at other high end items like this, though, they would probably be 5 silver per in an ingame vendor situation. So I think it’s the latter.

Any example? Just wondering since the only end-game item I’d really compare with a transmutation crystal are the skin rewards, which are usually priced at 5 to 10g + tokens.

Master Salvage Kit would be the best. It’s a high end consumable designed to get high end mats and rune/sigils out of gear. It’s under 2 gold for 25 uses.

Transmutation Crystals aren’t skins, they’re just a way to get high end stats onto the skin you want as long as you already have both pieces.

I don’t think the salvage kits are a good comparison to transmutation crystals. A salvage kit is something you’re supposed to be buying and using all the time as you play, while a tranmutation crystal is something rarely used and usually meant to be used only once on a piece of gear you’re going to keep using for a long time, which is why I feel that skins prices are a better comparison, but of course YMMV.

banana.9038:

Idea for a sweet minstrel: plays GW2 theme song as you move, and instead of footprints, a trail that resembles a staff with notes on it (that mimics said song).

This is the sound the minstrel should do..

Algreg.3629:

de-brony some of the legendaries while you are at it, especially Quip :P

Leave Quip like that, it’s the only legendary I’d like to have (on my mesmer).

Legendaries are getting a second change, you will be able to change weapon stats off combat, so if you wanted to you could have a sentinel ascended legendary, then change it to a berserker ascended legendary, back to sentinel and so on.

xephire.8324:

And in the next patch we will have hello kitty land.Ant the subsequent patch we will have spongebob square pants land

LF2M for Krusty Krab dungeon, zerker warrior and guardians only, self invite

Make it happen Anet!!!..

Kal Spiro.9745:

locoman.1974:

Let’s put the gold to exchange ratio in 5g for 100gems (it was around 4 last time I checked), 5 transmutation crystals are 200 gems, so you’re basically paying 2g for each one (or 1.6 if you buy 800 gems and buy 25 crystals).

If tomorrow they were to delete the crystals from the store and add a vendor that offers them for 2g… what would be the difference? Or you just want a cheaper way to obtain them?

If you look at other high end items like this, though, they would probably be 5 silver per in an ingame vendor situation. So I think it’s the latter.

Any example? Just wondering since the only end-game item I’d really compare with a transmutation crystal are the skin rewards, which are usually priced at 5 to 10g + tokens.

Yaki.9563:

locoman.1974:

champ.7021:

Justdeifyme.9387:

Ascended Trinkets are 5% better than Exotics. Getting Ascended Trinkets isn’t even necessary if you aren’t planning on doing Fractals. What do you even want to do with 5% better Stats? WvW? It’s a big zerg, the 5% more Life, Damage or whatever won’t make a difference if the Weapons and Armor have the same Statistic improvement.

You don’t HAVE to get Ascended Gear if you DON’T WANT. There’s really no need. Yet.

is this actually true. I mean i get 5% better stats but isnt that just one trinket versus another. For example if you have an exotic zerker ring the ascended version is 5% better. Add that up for all 6 trinkets and its alot more than just 5% unless im wrong :p

If they keep the same stat increase across the board (it’s not out of the table for them to increase less or more for different bits of gear) you’d expect to see an increase of about 17% once all gear becomes ascended, assuming they don’t do something like introducing ascended jewels you can apply to exotic, for example.

For example, let’s do the math between Mark of Thethyos Houses (ascended amulet with berserker stats) Vs. a standard exotic berserker amulet

Berserker amulet + exquisite ruby jewel:
Power: 105
Presicion: 79
Crit Damage: 8%

Ascended amulet (omiting the fractional for ease of calculations):
Power: 126 – 20% increase
Prescion: 96 – 21% increase
Crit Damage: 9% – 12% increase
Average: 17%

So if every piece in average increases in 17% in stats, that’s the full amount you’d expect to see as an increase between a full exotic and a full ascended character.

You got the stats wrong for the amulets. It’s:

Power: 115
Precision: 79
Crit Damage: 8%

vs.

Power: 126
Precision: 85
Crit Damage: 9%

Calculating a % upgrade is also misleading, especially in the case of Crit Damage because it doesn’t account for the base value.

Thanks for the correction, I was using the % upgrade assuming it’s the average increase of stat budget around the board, which which is what I believe would be the general increase of stats between a fully exotic character and a fully ascended one. Your numbers put it closer to the 10% I’ve often heard..

Let’s put the gold to exchange ratio in 5g for 100gems (it was around 4 last time I checked), 5 transmutation crystals are 200 gems, so you’re basically paying 2g for each one (or 1.6 if you buy 800 gems and buy 25 crystals).

If tomorrow they were to delete the crystals from the store and add a vendor that offers them for 2g… what would be the difference? Or you just want a cheaper way to obtain them?

Depends on how max you want it to be.

The higher tier for most gear currently is exotic. You can get full exotic gear inmediately after hitting 80 if you have enough karma, badges of honor or money. Rare is the previous tier of gear, just by playing to 80 if it is your first character you can probably have enough money for a full rare set of gear from the TP and crafting + a few exotics from karma, TP or badges of honor.

The next tier is ascended gear, currently there’s only ascended trinkets you can get but you can’t get them right away as the gear is timegated, you get it either with laurels (which you can get one each day + 10 every month if you do the daily and monthly achievements) or, in the case of accesories, guild missions, which can give you enough 6 commendations a week (you need 8 for each accesory). In the next patch ascended weapons will be added as drops (probably VERY rare) and crafting, increasing max. crafting level to 500 and using time gated materials (AKA materials you can only make one a day, for example). They said that ascended armor will also be added sometime this year, but no further tiers of gear are planed on the foreseeable future, character progression from this point on is supposed to be done with new skills they’re going to add instead of new tiers of gear.

That said, personally I think it’s making a storm in a glass of water, at least until we have more information about how it’ll work. Almost every content in the game (with the exception of high level fractals) can be done with rare (or even masterwork) gear, and the difference between ascended and exotic isn’t that big in the first place. Unlike other games, there aren’t such defined tiers of progression, where you’re absolutely excluded from one tier until you’ve grinded and geared yourself in the previous tier.

If your goal is to get the absolute BiS for everything, then yes, it’ll take a while. If your goal is to get a viable character for practically all content in the game, it’s relatively easy and quick.

champ.7021:

Justdeifyme.9387:

Ascended Trinkets are 5% better than Exotics. Getting Ascended Trinkets isn’t even necessary if you aren’t planning on doing Fractals. What do you even want to do with 5% better Stats? WvW? It’s a big zerg, the 5% more Life, Damage or whatever won’t make a difference if the Weapons and Armor have the same Statistic improvement.

You don’t HAVE to get Ascended Gear if you DON’T WANT. There’s really no need. Yet.

is this actually true. I mean i get 5% better stats but isnt that just one trinket versus another. For example if you have an exotic zerker ring the ascended version is 5% better. Add that up for all 6 trinkets and its alot more than just 5% unless im wrong :p

If they keep the same stat increase across the board (it’s not out of the table for them to increase less or more for different bits of gear) you’d expect to see an increase of about 17% once all gear becomes ascended, assuming they don’t do something like introducing ascended jewels you can apply to exotic, for example.

For example, let’s do the math between Mark of Thethyos Houses (ascended amulet with berserker stats) Vs. a standard exotic berserker amulet

Berserker amulet + exquisite ruby jewel:
Power: 105
Presicion: 79
Crit Damage: 8%

Ascended amulet (omiting the fractional for ease of calculations):
Power: 126 – 20% increase
Prescion: 96 – 21% increase
Crit Damage: 9% – 12% increase
Average: 17%

So if every piece in average increases in 17% in stats, that’s the full amount you’d expect to see as an increase between a full exotic and a full ascended character.

Spiral Architect.6540:

Justdeifyme.9387:

Ascended Trinkets are 5% better than Exotics. Getting Ascended Trinkets isn’t even necessary if you aren’t planning on doing Fractals. What do you even want to do with 5% better Stats? WvW? It’s a big zerg, the 5% more Life, Damage or whatever won’t make a difference if the Weapons and Armor have the same Statistic improvement.

You don’t HAVE to get Ascended Gear if you DON’T WANT. There’s really no need. Yet.

It will not take long before ANet starts tuning new content to Ascended level gear. They’ll have to, or people will get bored. When that starts happening, there will be need, and people who don’t have Ascended will have to either skip the new content, or start grinding.

I don’t play GW2 to chase gear tiers; I’ve had enough of that in other games. I had hoped that Ascended weapons, like other promised announcements — the LFG tool, the fix to condition damage, and portals for non-mesmer classes — would never actually make it into the game. But it looks like they’re here now.

I had hoped ANet would get creative, and develop progression in the game that wasn’t reliant on gear tiers. Color me disappointed.

A question here… other than high level fractals… what content have they introduced into the game that absolutely needs exotic or you can’t possibly complete at all?. Heck, I’ve even beaten most gauntlet bosses in a character that was mostly rare geared.

Solid Gold.9310:

Most of my events out of about 30 have been in overflow, and I always join within seconds of the message coming up.

Just to add, the event is always running so long as you get in fast, even in overflow.

Same here, and lots of times I even get in late and still get it. Heck, at least one time I disconnected when joining an invasion, the game wouldn’t connect back in, had to close it, open it again, and when I logged in (thinking I would have to start asking for guildies for an active overflow), got into one that had the event going.

Lisa.6102:

Are all servers having the invasion on at the same time? and is there a set rotation

Here is my issue.

I get home from work, if i get 3 hours play in I’m lucky.

The last few night I seem to be getting the same three maps, meh ok for farming but I am pretty kitten sure now that I am not going to make it to the play house or am i going to be able to complete the clockwork chaos achievement.

P.S I don’t have a potty mouth that “kitten” is for Dam with an “n” on the end.

Yes, all servers and overflows get the same invasion at the same time.

When it comes to damage, there’s a point where you’d need too much precision to increase it any further, and probably using gear with other damage stat like power ends up giving you a higher increase in DPS than higher crit damage. Just guessing here, I’ll leave someone better than me in guildmathemagic to put the actual calculation if possible..

Also depends on build. On my guardian, for example, I have well over 55% (IIRC), not because of the damage but because I get different effects anytime I crit, same on my mesmer whose main damage comes from bleeds that are caused by clones when they crit.