Guild Wars 2

Nos Deserdi Veritas.4632:

Hi,

I’m sure I’m not the only one when I say that crafting a precursor is expensive.
Let me give one example:
- You need 250 Crystalline Ingot
- Each of those need 1 Amalgamated Gemstone
- Each of those need 9 Beryl Orb (for example)
- Those cost right now 27s, you need 2250!
- Total costs for only the Orbs is around 585 gold!
You can also buy Amalgamated Gemstone, that’s around 750g right now.

That’s the part for the legendary step. Not the precursor. -_-

Miellyn.6847:

and he is complaining about the precursor price, the ingots are part of the gift of maguuma mastery and NOT part of the precursor, so his complain is just wrong

Yes just that.

Garambola.2461:

How did you get Agent’s Pack? I have always gotten the one that belongs to the characters order only.

You have to finish the first act of HoT story.
You will get a pop up with a choice of the 3 backpack order.
You don’t need to be in any order to get that loot.

But you will need to have a character in the corresponding order to obtain the ascended version as you need to complete the skin (weapon & armor) order collection for it.

Malediktus.9250:

FrizzFreston.5290:

I would be for switching the costs around. 40 commendations and 10 crystalline ore.

In a way, having these costs makes it a slightly more rare skin, rather than something every guild has. There’s a bit more effort involved that way.
Bit sad that you need to do DS only for it tho. There’s nothing for wvw or pvp to get them, right?

40 commendations and 10 crystalline ore would be worse. Instead of making 1 skin every week + 4 DS runs you could make one every 4 weeks + 1 DS run.
They should just remove the crystalline ore requirement like they already did from the decoration traders.

Agree also put all the mini at 40 commendations or at least not have that ridiculou jump from 25 reco to 75 reco.

Aedelric.1287:

Interesting, this is the issue has been around for ages and Arena Net did not care, not till a streamer they like pointed it out.

If Arena Net listened to half the feedback they get by regular players then such issues would have been addressed a long time ago.

Thta’s actually what is kittening me off the most about all that story.
It’s amazing that Anet finally do something about that.
It’s irritating that they had to hear a streamer rage about it to feel concerned.

With all the feedback that people give, only top reddit post/raging streamer/…whateva mediatic stuff come to their hears.

Chad.6104:

Maybe they don’t want you to have them all. Or maybe they only want you to have them all as a long term goal, like years. They like scarcity and only some people having the rewards or only having them after lots of time and effort. Since they like scarcity and long term goals then they’re not going to reduce the numbers needed or the number of ore that you get.

Except that long term goal miniature shouldn’t be tiny & crap looking miniature of common/generic mob NPC.

That doesn’t fit well with long time goal or amazing reward.

ProtoGunner.4953:

Yes, the amount of stuff you need for guild hall is ridiculous. I mean the minis, wtf? Doesn’t make any sense. It’s like, look here a rice grain pay 100000€ for it. It’s so arbitrary.

Plus they are SO ugly. The models are completetly downscaled, this lead to a lot of aliasing.
The price also doesn’t make sense; It should have stayed at the initial cost.

@Khyan
I get what you are saying but I try to address the inconsistency in the way that normaly legendary would affect the skill & trail effect from class using it.

With specialization & the change of staff being now a caster/melee wepon & hammer becoming a melee/distance weapon some inconsistency in those effect appeared.

Now I don’t want to use either staff as melee but for other that might want to, i think they would like to have the same trail effect change as other.

As for gardian/thief/revenant:
– a trail would be nice (also put it for other class)
– some other animation including the raven spirit when a kind of skill is used,like the flock of raven coming out again when using skill 4 for gard or rev & skill 5 for thief.
– skill 3 on druid could change you in a raven or a rainbow.
– skill 1 on gard should definitively also proc the projectile.

OtterPaws.2036:

Nevermore turns the projectiles that goes through Druid’s staff 5 into ravens too.

Revenant and Thief dont exactly have any projectiles so not much to change with them unless they wanna turn the trail from Thief’s dust trail skill thing into a raven/rainbow

Didn’t know for the skill 5. I edited my main post.
As for Revenant & thief, the staves doesn’t make any change that we normally have with legendary melee weapon: the weapon trail being changed from the class default to a legendary one would seems normal.

On another note;
Juggernaut with revenant doesn’t alter the autoattack & skill 5 too.
For Melee legendary & off hand that some skill would happened to throw, usually you should have a model swap to the legendary & the projectile trail would be changed to the legendary effect.
This doesn’t occur with Juggernaut & Revenant as the model stay on the default model.

Edit: I changed the topic to look as the effect consistency with more class & specialisation if I have the legendary.
If you have a legendary & that you see a problem with it on revenant or specialization skill please post here. I will edit the main post.

Staves
We have 7 classes that can use staff. Originally most where caster aside from the Gardian.
Elem; all auto attack make a raven appear.
mesmer; autoattack & clone make a raven appear, clone are wielding nevermore.
Necro; autoattack make a raven appear.
Gardian; skill 2 see a raven drawn. (personnal I would like to see skill 1 change too).
Druide; skill 2 & skill 5 are affected.
Revenant & daredevil(thief); no effect whatsoever, the trail when swinging isn’t changed like all the other legendary melee weapon do.
No skill proc rainbow or raven spirit.

Hammer
Revenant
Juggernaut with revenant doesn’t alter the autoattack & skill 5 too.
For Melee legendary & off hand that some skill would happened to throw, usually you should have a model swap to the legendary & the projectile trail would be changed to the legendary effect.
This doesn’t occur with Juggernaut & Revenant as the model stay on the default model.

Engineer
Juggernaut aura doesn’t stay when you take a kit.
Does this happen with Quip or predator ?

Axe
Revenant & frostfang; with skill 4 throw the frostfang model with an ice track.
Astralaria work in the same way as Frostfang based on the wiki.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Astralaria
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Frostfang

Greatsword reaper only.
All of them create projectile & diplicate model when used with skill 5.

WarHorn elem only.
Everything fine.

Shield chrono & revenant.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Flameseeker_Prophecies
Nothing particular.

Avador.8934:

While making some screenshots I noticed that these raven projectiles are very good detailed, looks like devs put a lot more work into it than I first thought! Great job!
I posted it here because someone might be interested in it.

Yes they are for Necro, Elem & mesmer because their auto-attacks are usually projectile.
But not for Thief (daredevil), Gardian, Revenant &ranger (Druide) as auto attack & most of their skill aren’t projectile.

So the changing skill effect of legendary isn’t really there at all & thus the amazing good looking raven spirit.

Finalstrike.8259:

Two words: Mounted Combat.

zenleto.6179:

I went back to the Molten Alliance pick thread to have a read since this one reminded me of it. The products are apples and oranges but it was also full of “whaaaa it costs too much for what it is!!” and so on. And now people have too many of that style of thing, much of it probably from gems purchased with cash. I suspect the same thing may happen with these account wide slots.

I’m not not sure about that for 2 reasons.
- You can only buy 5 shared slot.
- ANet refund policy is kittening off the buyer of multiple…..“everything else” that didn’t have a limit.

dbill.7483:

So, the response from ANET has bothered me enough that instead of trying to get a refund for the extras tools and salvage-o-matics. I decided to request a refund for the “Shared Inventory Slots” item.

I can’t justify spending 2800 gems for the QoL improvement that make my previous purchase of almost 10,000 gems worthless.

Sorry ANET, I just can’t support this.

That’s the way to go.

Jaymee.1560:

Havelock Ventari.5481:

GM Awesomeness.8619:

As for refunds: if you’ve had these account-bound items for ages, we won’t be doing refunds because you’ve already derived substantial benefit. If, however, you bought them more recently, we’re doing refunds on a case-by-case basis.

I got a surprising definition of “ages” from Customer Support – or should I rather say Customer Repellent?

Some Other GM

As the previous GM said, we are not able to refund your items because you bought them years ago. We are able to give refunds if the item was purchased within 24 hours. Sometimes a little later depending on the case. I Know you do not want to see this answer but we cannot grant your request for a refund.

Anet: I really hope you change your views of “customer friendlyness”. You don’t lose anything on refunding Gems. The only thing you lose is valuable customers if you don’t refund in cases like this.

I agree wholeheartedly with this. It’s not like Anet has to credit our Visa cards on this.

The Tools, well, fortunately for both Anet and us costumers, they are still usable. They will forever be of use to our accounts, though now, anyone that bought the Shared Inventory Slots technically doesn’t need them if they are able to share it with all other characters.

However… The Terrace Scrolls, Airship Passes, to those who bought the Shared slots, if they own multiples, it is now USELESS. Trash, all but one is needed to be put in a shared slot. ArenaNet, I am a devout supporter to this game, but this… to say you won’t give refunds on these items, which are now useless, then on top of it tell us to simply delete them? After my husband spent 100 dollars to get 8000 Gems to purchase them, and myself 50 dollars to have 4 scrolls… telling us we they can’t be refunded is… very shallow. I’m sorry to say.

So, we want our gems back, for something that now utterly has no purpose. Is that really so unreasonable?

Well if they fear an influx in gems then:
Based on how much duplicate people old unlocks the correspondant amount of shared slot;
If someone have more than 2800 gems worth of duplicate add a little amount of gems to the deal .

I would call that a great customer service.

Skywing.4836:

Just throwing in my experience. Customer service won’t refund me. I was about to buy more gems to support these new items. I guess it is not happening.

Would you mind putting the exchange there ?

MTTomlinson.4795:

I am not sure, as others are in the thread about the refund policy. However, as someone has bought gems every week to support a game I like and still do I will now rethink my buying gems because if they had these before hand I would not need the multiple tools or the salvage kits I spent my real life money on. I honestly feel like I got screwed over on this deal and be more careful in the future.

I stop buying gem as Anet doesn’t seem to have any consistency in customer service.
The Qol for the slot is amazing but I will just use my duplicate & keep pestering the support.

Bomber.3872:

wow… this thread is hard to read!
I mean even I wrote here multiple times and I can’t follow anymore with whom/what I discussed…

With my current count (well like gaile asked) here are at least 3 different kind of discussions and opinions in here (1. refunds, 2. price problems, 3. suggestions/like it) and to make it even harder to write/read at least 4 long totally different threads have been merged in here.

Actually gaile opened this thread and her post has now been merged and changed to position 18.
If really any dev reads this thread (like gaile wrote in her post) and at least understands any part of it, well I can only say that I have big respect for this person!

I don’t think they read it.

Danikat.8537:

Refund update:

According to my support ticket you have to have owned a duplicate item (in my case a mining pick) for less than 6 months to get a refund.

I don’t know what the exact cut-off point is, but I bought a 2nd one at the start of August and I’ve just been told that was too long ago.

Thank you for the update but that is still ridiculous: most mining pick & recyclomatic I have are more than 6 months old.

That refund is unacceptable.

hennrick.4623:

Also, for those who are asking refunds for items already bought multiple times: you have my sympathy and i hope Anet will manage something for you, but i hardly doubt you will get one. Simply because you don’ t have the right to do so. If something is broken or is not deemed fitting then there can be refund rights, but if something becomes outdated ( which is not the exact case, but is similar enough ) you still have benefited of that thing for a long time, and you decided to invest your income into that. No one forced you to do so and no one admitted that there would not be a way to share items for your characters ( and actually that already existed for a long time ), that was your choice weighted by you.

Well rising Dusk made a good post to explain why they should as they already refunded for previous case such as account binding mining tool, etc..

Rising Dusk.2408:

GM Awesomeness.8619:

As for refunds: if you’ve had these account-bound items for ages, we won’t be doing refunds because you’ve already derived substantial benefit. If, however, you bought them more recently, we’re doing refunds on a case-by-case basis.

I appreciate the response, but respectfully contend that I don’t think this is an appropriate stance for customer support to take. When infinite gathering tools became account bound, players were able to get complete refunds for the extras that they did not need any longer regardless of time purchased. Additionally, when the wardrobe went live players were able to get complete refunds for any town clothes previously purchased regardless of time purchased. This situation is no different. Players’ gem store items become obsolete with the acquisition of this new functionality, and their permanent items that are no longer useful should be refunded regardless of time purchased. Seriously, with an account bound bag slot the best course of action regarding extra items like Salvage-o-Matics is to destroy them. That feels horrible and should not be something you guys proliferate.

Please reconsider your stance.

Bomber.3872:

Since gw2 release I spent over 400€ only on gw2, even more money since gw1. For me yesterday’s update was like a hit in the face. Actually now most of the money and thousand’s of ingame gold I spent changed into a total useless waste.

I’m in the same case; I will also hold any gem buying until Anet accept the refund even if they decide to apply the lowest discounted price.

zenleto.6179:

papry.8096:

TheGrimm.5624:

Ok, too all the people saying this is overpriced I don’t think you get it. Take an alt-o-holic. You have 15 toons. On those you bought 10 CooperFeed Salvage-o-matic and multiple SilverFeed ones. Royal Terrace pass same-thing.

I think the better question, how do you handle the people that did buy multiple of the items since now they are left with a bad customer service transaction since this option wasn’t around before.

It’s kind of ironic; this is a alt-o-holic item that will probably kitten alt-o-holic due refund policy.

Its not going to kitten this altoholic. I only want one that’s for my permanent bank. Done and dusted. I don’t have a salvage thing so I’m not affected there.

I’m happy for you but I will hold any buying until the refund of the extra recyclomatic is agreed on by Anet.

Reading all the feed back from WvW player & most PvE players.
Seems like Anet would be better off by selling these by 4 slots for 700 gems buyable 5 times with the current discount of 5 max (20 slots) at 2800 gems.

TheGrimm.5624:

Ok, too all the people saying this is overpriced I don’t think you get it. Take an alt-o-holic. You have 15 toons. On those you bought 10 CooperFeed Salvage-o-matic and multiple SilverFeed ones. Royal Terrace pass same-thing.

I think the better question, how do you handle the people that did buy multiple of the items since now they are left with a bad customer service transaction since this option wasn’t around before.

It’s kind of ironic; this is a alt-o-holic item that will probably kitten alt-o-holic due refund policy.

Kim.4152:

Very hard to understand the lack of consistency regarding refunds. Multiples of infinite gathering tools were refunded, as were town clothes. Now they’re saying no refunds for duplicates of terrace passes, salvaging tools, etc. Makes no sense.

Well I’m also baffled by their inconsistency, plus I didn’t ask for the first refund of gathering tool as my problem was the loading time when switching.

Now with these shared slot as I had a permanent bank access for very long : all I have to do is pop the bank & swap the tool.
No loading involved; so the double are useless to me.

As I also own the permanent merchant, I can also buy spare tools anywhere & on every toon.

The duplicate mining tool & even the infinite tool (aside from the watchwork pick) really doesn’t make sense now. :/

Rising Dusk.2408:

GM Awesomeness.8619:

As for refunds: if you’ve had these account-bound items for ages, we won’t be doing refunds because you’ve already derived substantial benefit. If, however, you bought them more recently, we’re doing refunds on a case-by-case basis.

I appreciate the response, but respectfully contend that I don’t think this is an appropriate stance for customer support to take. When infinite gathering tools became account bound, players were able to get complete refunds for the extras that they did not need any longer regardless of time purchased. Additionally, when the wardrobe went live players were able to get complete refunds for any town clothes previously purchased regardless of time purchased. This situation is no different. Players’ gem store items become obsolete with the acquisition of this new functionality, and their permanent items that are no longer useful should be refunded regardless of time purchased. Seriously, with an account bound bag slot the best course of action regarding extra items like Salvage-o-Matics is to destroy them. That feels horrible and should not be something you guys proliferate.

Please reconsider your stance.

Well said.

The shared slot utility used with the permanent bank access is litterally a 360 multiplier.

For long time time owner of the item, the time limitation doesn’t seems right as I wouldn’t have brought duplicate item with both.

I’m literally stuck with the double now as all i have to do is :
Open inventory, double click on permanent access bank, take the infinite recolt tool & use them.
When before I had to switch character go to a bank access & log in any other map.

GM Awesomeness.8619:

As for refunds: if you’ve had these account-bound items for ages, we won’t be doing refunds because you’ve already derived substantial benefit. If, however, you bought them more recently, we’re doing refunds on a case-by-case basis.

Thx for your answer & time, I understand your point of view.
But I had the permanent bank access before any of the unlimited tool & recyclomatic.
If the shared slot account have existed before, I would have no use for these at all from the beginning so I have mixed feeling on that.

A shared slot with a permanent bank access litteraly multiply that slot utility by 360.

I don’t think that this decision seems reasonnable.

JPUlisses.8756:

People asking for refunds.

What about people that were smart enough to know that a shared slot would come and did not waste in multiple coppers and tools?
It would be unfair that people get a refund while all this time they got extra comfort, while people that were smart did not, there should be a prize for being smart, not dumb!

I want my 9000 gems.

Thank you for your constructive post. :sarcasm:

Donari.5237:

Back when the wardrobe went into effect and I had many extra townclothes as a result, I submitted a very polite and detailed ticket (granted, they had announced there would be a refund time window). I listed how many extra of each item I had. It was a lot of gems worth — and they refunded all of them. Because numbers don’t stick in my head I can’t remember any more how much it was other than definitely, literally, over 9000. Might have been over 19,000.

That’s very reassuring. Thx a lot for your post.

MashMash.1645:

You have to laugh really. They sell multiples of items to the players, because we have no shared bags, then they introduce shared bags (very expensive ones mind you) and that makes all those other items completely useless.

What bothers me is that actually they are :
– less costly to me than the duplicate recyclomatic & infinite tool I bought.
– More pratical as i possess an permanent bank access.

So that change is massive to me & actually really negate the need of duplicate gem item that I own currently.

Gaile Gray.6029:

papry — why don’t you submit a ticket and talk to Customer Support about your question? They will examine the request and the individual elements involved and do their best to assist you. Thanks.

As I said I did but considering the amount of gems I invested…..my pinky fear a negative answer.

I only ask for a gem return for the item.
But considering I have 5 character with the infinite tool & recyclomatic that’s at least 2900 (3*700 +800) per character (if I consider that some are before the account wide infinite recolt change).
For 4, that’s at least 11 200 gems, so I have my doubt there.

MashMash.1645:

Lots of peeps now have useless duplicate salvage and harvesting tools.

I’m in the same case there & that’s really bothersome.

So I have a fair number of alt with their own recyclomatic & infinite recolt tool.
I also own a permanent bank access.
Now with the new shared inventory slot, they become totally useless & redundant, so I hope for a gem refund for them.
Is it possible ?

DoctorDing.5890:

Does the owner of the weapon hear the sounds too?

Yes they do.
Funny thing : once I asked a dreamer owner if he didn’t find the sound irritating.
His answer : “I turned the game sound down, can’t hear it.”

zeus.9634:

whoot, thats the best thing of the dreamer. i love to annoy other peoples with rainbowponies and that awesome pew pew pew sound. everyone hates it when im showing up and directly starts moaning, its great

Thanks for your post.
Dev this is exactly why this option should appear.
Because this bow sound is so obnoxious some players use it to irritate others & others respond not so nicely.

A vicious loop is born

So in order to have the provisionner token, you have to craft each day a complete set of weapon & armor.
Then bring them to many NPC across Hot map which will take many slot and we are forced to do that.

I was fine with a lot of timegate but this time this is going too far; this is the exact same kitten that the orphan from wintersday but with an tenfold annoyance level.

No thx Anet, won’t do that kitten.

ProtoGunner.4953:

Hopefully they’ll add mounts. The imbecile non-arguments of the anti-mount opposition can go to hell.

Not like the mount side have any good counter argument….Oh wait.

Kite.2510:

…and instead consider giving some different form of traversing the environment.

Well the one from Ulgoth is not dropping for me at all.
I have spent 3 weeks doing Ulgoth daily & Nothing.
I gave up.

Revenant specialization based on burning condition to be used with Mallyx.
Guardian specialization with a passive +25% movement speed or an active aura for +33%.

Template in conjunction with a separate inventory for armor/weapon set.
Now the need for multiple armor/weapon set have become really problematic.

Jewelry 500 to be able to carft viper/zealot/etc trinket as ANet doesn’t seems to want us being able to buy them like all the old ascended trinket.

Ykfox.3825:

You can also just whisper them and ask what the skins/etc they have are. Most people are cool and will answer you.

Just this; people answer when you whisp them.

But never invite them to a party without asking, for me it’s " WTF no no".

That’s a remnant of Karma being soulbound.
They changed it to have a account bound money but they didn’t change the item in game to be buyable account bound & to become soulbound on equip.

Where it becomes annoying (specially with legendary collection), it’s that soulbound crafting item can’t be used by any other character.

So I agree with you.

Aomine.5012:

Viper ascended accessories and Rings do not even exist yet lol..

Viper ascended amulet is lock behind a series of tedious AP, which is way harder than any Sinister pieces.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/asc-trinket-HoT-stat-locked-behind-RAID/first#post5882174

You are welcome!!!

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

The hardest part is the bystander effect. If I need to split the squad up or send people to different ends, nobody does it. You’ll get 40 people all standing around, waiting for someone else to volunteer. There’s an important lesson in life here: Everyone is waiting for someone else to do the important thing, so you do it. No one else will, so its gotta be you.

That is the one that frustrate me the more & I think that is why Verdant brink at night is horrible.

Asking people to spread equals frustration to the maximum.

Derigar.7810:

I command because I like to help people, but I honestly feel like being treated like cr*p at times. Friendliest community? Try to command any HoT map.

Oh that so much that.

EremiteAngel.9765:

Looking pretty dark there.

Dark like over filtering dark.

Well either they make a recipe that allows us to demote leather & tissue with a desirable rate or they allows us when recycling medium/ligth armor at lvl80 to have a chance at any leater/tissue (minus T1).

Cyninja.2954:

That argumentation does not even make sense. Sure we can complain ONCE arenanet has changed something. I will certainly not do so before hand. For all we know they might put in a new tier after ascended. Let’s worry about that too.

You fail to realise that the trinkets are NOT NEEDED and are infact a disadvantage since they provide to much of the new stats in the current state of the game. Now you might feel left out or sad that you can’t have every single stat combo available to you, which is a valid complaint.

Then rephrase your complaint and make clear that this is what bothers you. Currently, your terminology is faulty.

But Anet do make change (nerf) based on the stat that they release, see the veggie pizza example that was nerfed from +40% to +20% condition damage duration.

As for the trinket: yes they are not currently needed but as I said, we have no idea what Anet may come with stats combination in the future & they migth require viper trinket or whatever else.

So yeah, every stats combo should be available & not hidden behind drop.

Edit: okay I changed the title.

Cyninja.2954:

You are starting to argue your point based on maybes and possible future content changes, which you have no basis on believeing they might get added. This should already tell you how weak your argument is.
Let’s keep it in the here and now.

Not really, before HoT anyone would have said that sinister is the get go stat for condition.
After HoT not anymore: Viper is king for condition.
Because Anet added :
- 2 new attributes: expertise & concentration.
- 6 news stats combo.

My point still stands.
You are not sure what set of stats, you may need to tackle future content or Anet decide to add.
Having part of these stats locked behind specific content isn’t a good thing in the long run.
Armor & weapon are easy to change now but trinket are getting used as reward more & more & scattered all around the place.

Cyninja.2954:

2 points make your entire argument void:

A.) no one is disagreeing that raids are providing the only method of aquiring rings and accessoires with viper stats. What people disagree on is you calling this a treadmill, which it is not.

B.) the fact that you think viper ascended trinkets are desirable or needed. As of right now a full set of:

- Viper ascended armor and Viper ascended weapons
- Viper amulet (gained via HoT Story arch 4 achievements)
- rest Sinister trinkets
- Koi Cake + Toxic Focusing Crystal

provides maximum condition duration for classes. Why you would want to go above the cap of 100% condition duration is beyond me. Yes, having the trinkets would allow for different armor setups, but the end effect and desired amount of stats does not change. So even here, trinkets are sidegrades.

Next time, less hyperbole, more research.

With the food currently available: yes it’s true.

Now full viper trinket over what you propose is 15,8 % condition duration increase.

Let’s take the focusing crystal: if Anet release a new oil that give something like :
Gain condition damage Equal to 6% of your power
Gain condition damage Equal to 6% of your precision

I’m not sure that your current setup wins (this is just an example so don’t call me on it).

And your argument still doesn’t void the zealot problem.

The problem still stands: Anet hide desirable ascended stats trinket behind raid drop.

PopeUrban.2578:

So what you’re saying is that defense stats suck.

That’s not the same issue.

Unless you want to change the whole meta ( which I don’t) : yes.
But the fact is that Anet hide the most desired ascended stats trinket (stats that fit the meta) behind Raid purposefully.
Take what you want from that.

PopeUrban.2578:

And by “top” you mean “more damage and less sustain than the other options”

This is not a treadmill. It’s a way to get more damage at the cost of less survivability.

It’s a sidegrade

In a game with active defense as the main defense, thus making defense stats irelevant in PvE.
Sure (sarcasm)

Damage is an upgrade.

PopeUrban.2578:

Technically that’s not a treadmill as all new stat sets are sidegrades, not upgrades. They’re preventing you from losing a specific amount of one stat to gain a specific amount of another stat, but they’re not actually giving a raw stat increase.

gear treadmill is based on the idea of planned obsoletion, that you need to grind a specific set of gear, with the knowledge that one day your gear will be absolutely obsolete and you’ll need to farm some more to stay relevant.

Before HoT :
Top condition stats was sinister & there was rare veggie pizza that was +40% condition duration.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rare_Veggie_Pizza
Healing stats was useless.

After HoT :
Top condition stats is viper & rare veggie pizza was nerfed to +20% condition duration.
Healing stats without toughness became really important (only zealot exist & there was no ascended trinket for it).

Both of those are behind raid.