Ascended gear in WvW

[LaFurion.3167]

Hi all. I know previously, the generally accepted viewpoint was that exotic gear was enough for WvW, and your weapon/trinkets/rings being ascended was all you "needed", HOWEVER

 

Post PoF, my characters have been getting blown up in fights. Now I'm still not a very good player, but I was wondering if damage seems to be wayyyyyyyyy wayyyyyyyyyyy higher in WvW than HoT. Honestly, I feel like the era of "exotics being enough" are over with the power creep from PoF.

 

People were saying that full ascended is only 5-7% more stats, but I feel like with all the power creep, that 5-7% has added SO much more "damage" to WvW.

 

I'd like other people's thoughts on this. Am I just wrong/bad and it's a L2P issue? I have focused on starting to gear full ascended now; just got my weapon and will work towards armor and make a thread in a month or so if I can clearly feel a difference.

 

Any number crunching and/or discussion/personal opinions appreciated.

 

Ty.

 

P.S. - I am a solo roamer, that tried to have 1v1 fights (seems like it's always 1v7 though .__.). I feel like this is relevant to the thread. I'm sure exotics is fine for zergging

[LaFurion.3167]

Also I prefer power builds; power mirage, reaper, scrapper (haven't unlocked Holo yet).

 

I usually had full soldiers gear on all my power characters... instant blown up still....

[Arlette.9684]

The 5% difference in gear stat won’t amount to a noticeable difference in TTK, the only thing that can do that is dodging better and interrupting (if that is in your class’ toolset).

A 5% dmg increase on a 10k wombo combo shot is still a 10k wombo combo shot.

A well timed dodge on a 10k wombo combo shot is a 0 wombo combo fail for your opponent.

[LaFurion.3167]

> @Arlette.9684 said:

> The 5% difference in gear stat won’t amount to a noticeable difference in TTK, the only thing that can do that is dodging better and interrupting (if that is in your class’ toolset).

> A 5% dmg increase on a 10k wombo combo shot is still a 10k wombo combo shot.

> A well timed dodge on a 10k wombo combo shot is a 0 wombo combo fail for your opponent.

 

Hmm I understand that this is what most people think, but I have noticed a huuuuuge power spike from PoF... maybe its just the power creep from new elite specs? idk.... either way, im getting off my ass and gearing full ascended now :/

[Arlette.9684]

You are correct. /extra chars for lulz

[Bopha Debs.3290]

Well couple things here. Ascended is def good to have so by all means grab some, but knights gear probably isnt helping you out much. lots of the damage you're taking is likely in conditions. PoF has opened up the door to a lot more hybrid builds, so your toughness is probably doing very little to help you survive. also most of the power based wombo combo builds run pretty squishy builds so its better to have more damage so u can kill them before they kill you. if your armor makes their 10k burst into a 8k but you hit them like a wet noodle you still die, it just takes them a couple more attacks. I would worry more about getting some vitality mixed in while keeping your damage output as high as you can. Otherwise yeah try to avoid hard hitting skills the best you can and only eat the weaker ones, not always easy when you're 1vx tho.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

Every time I die in WvW fights (roaming or zerg), it's almost always my fault. Not my build, not the opponent's build, not their gear nor mine. Once in a while, there's a fight that ends up depending +/- 5% health or +/- 5% DPS. Most of the time, the outcome is never in doubt.

[takatsu.9416]

I have like two pieces of ascended armor, ascended trinkets, and weapons on only one character, and I generally do decently roaming on multiple power builds. I play pretty glass. Regardless of ascended or not, you will get blown up if you play glassy power if you don't use and time all your survival skills. Ascended can give you that small percentage increase which does benefit your own offensive bursts due to the huge crit and conditionals on top of that but it doesn't help your defense much. Even if you get defensive stats, the amount of damage coming from elite specs since expansions can easily overwhelm those stats if you don't play right

[DemonSeed.3528]

I almost exclusively use exo wep/arm with exception of trinkets because I change builds so often. The only thing that I have more to deal with is just the condi's flying around but apart from that I haven't felt much difference against power based builds dishing dmg to me (multiclassing here) on average (not counting those big hitting skills). I did get caught off guard by some of those mirage spikes but you get used to dealing with them. As time passes I am doing even better against pof classes so I think exo is still alright. I still feel like I am on an equal playing field. Obviously my perspective is only from being used to all exo arm/wep. None of my chars have full asc so I don't know what I am missing out on, but I can say that I am able to fight with them without feeling disadvantaged. Forgot to mention, I roam, zerg, everything in between, just going where fights are and capping stuff etc.

[Sovereign.1093]

if its condi hitting u, despite your armor, it will burst you down.

 

so keep an eye on those ok =)

[Ricky.4706]

again, with most lower tier fights, many times you face large groups vs your smaller group or solo.....at that point, the extra toughness, and life seem moot, when you are taking hundreds of attacks, cc and condi almost instantaneously. I keep an extra chat tab up monitoring damage to gain insights on what skills hurt most. when you get jumped, the amount of instant damage you get is insane. there isn't just physical bonus, there are a whole bunch of small damage skills that are being cast that you never see without that tab, skills and bonuses i never heard of being shared by team mates.

 

I've made builds that pretty much use spandex for defense, but can take down a fully defensive super tank Guardian in like 30 seconds....which works well for blobs that bring like 5-10 guardians to coat their blobs with protection. - once I focus on taking those guys down, everyone else falls fast.

 

Now while I die fast, I kill faster....and often these fights take place near a portal....making my strategy more effective for that specific outnumberd / out buffed scenario than exchanging face slaps with Buffy the super tank guardian.

 

I don't play 1 build in wvw, i have a build for several occasions, when the dominant population is scourges, i bring my reaper, when the dominant players are guardians, i bring my - it's a secret, when the enemy blobs are zerkers, I bring my ninja bombers. - but this is why being able to change stats and ascended gear are important to me, I have a build for every occasion, and I need that extra % of damage to take enemies down fast, not 1 character that's the wanna be gawd of pvp. This is why I enjoy t4 over t1, t1 seems to have only one way to play which is just not for me.

[LaFurion.3167]

I also feel that offensively, the damage increase from full ascended is insaane now with the new elite PoF specs giving more power creep.

 

thoughts??

[reddie.5861]

u get blown up by 100 condi's stacking up on u by 20 at ones with re apply time of 0,0001s.

 

i have ascended set and exotic sets on same class toons both get equally fast blown out of the way, i honestly dont see a difference.

then again i kinda "rage" quit now anyway i cant stand this condi meta bullcrap so i might have missed something but i doubt meta flipped so fast..

 

its condi's that blow you up im pretty fucking sure :p, play warrior in exotic and youll see its doing fine aslong u got resistance up.

[jaif.3518]

I think it does make a difference, as it's +5% offense and +5% defense. Having said that, it's in the very narrow area of an even fight, which almost never happens. The roaming thief with an exotic burst build is going to blow up the ascended necro backliner struggling to get to his group, and that's just a one-v-one.

 

Also, remember that it's pretty easy to get ascended jewelry, and that helps to narrow the gap considerably.

[LaFurion.3167]

> @jaif.3518 said:

> I think it does make a difference, as it's +5% offense and +5% defense. Having said that, it's in the very narrow area of an even fight, which almost never happens. The roaming thief with an exotic burst build is going to blow up the ascended necro backliner struggling to get to his group, and that's just a one-v-one.

>

> Also, remember that it's pretty easy to get ascended jewelry, and that helps to narrow the gap considerably.

 

See thats what I mean though, I think stat wise, 5% offense and defense is true. But it adds more performance wise, and that is what I am asking you guys. 5% more stats doesnt mean 5% more damage, it feels like 15-20% increase sometimes....

[Ricky.4706]

> @LaFurion.3167 said:

> I also feel that offensively, the damage increase from full ascended is insaane now with the new elite PoF specs giving more power creep.

>

> thoughts??

 

it definitely helps, especially to those that fight a lot in outnumbered scenarios.

if you don't have the numbers to match a fight, you can't afford to have a long drawn out fight with a larger group, your only real hope is to rip em down fast 1 at a time. The more time they spend running to our keep from their spawn camp, the more time we have to rip down the rest of their blob while our roamers hunt the ones trying to come back in an effort to protect our keep from getting blobbed.

 

[jaif.3518]

> @LaFurion.3167 said:

> > @jaif.3518 said:

> > I think it does make a difference, as it's +5% offense and +5% defense. Having said that, it's in the very narrow area of an even fight, which almost never happens. The roaming thief with an exotic burst build is going to blow up the ascended necro backliner struggling to get to his group, and that's just a one-v-one.

> >

> > Also, remember that it's pretty easy to get ascended jewelry, and that helps to narrow the gap considerably.

>

> See thats what I mean though, I think stat wise, 5% offense and defense is true. But it adds more performance wise, and that is what I am asking you guys. 5% more stats doesnt mean 5% more damage, it feels like 15-20% increase sometimes....

 

I agree with the various comments here still. There's a lot of people who've played this game for years. They know the sights, sounds, countermoves, for every class. If you're faced off against them, those percentages don't mean much.

 

Go get your ascended jewelry. That's your next step.

[Justine.6351]

The days of "exotics are enough" are over. Power builds gain a huge advantage using ascended in wvw due to the damage vs guards infusions.

 

The second reason of exotics being obsolete for power builds has been not just the increase in raw stats but also the increase in the weapons damage rating.

 

The third reason of exotics being obsolete is the lower armor rating.

 

The forth reason of exotics being obsolete is that ascended gear is stupid easy to get now.

[DeadlySynz.3471]

Your characters (well everyone's character actually) will get blown up in fights regardless whether whether you are wearing: Blue, Green, Yellow, Exotic, or Ascended gear. This happens when one is hit from multiple sources and/or CC locked.

 

Damage is higher yes all around; however, if one person was focused by 5 people between now and vanilla GW2; the difference in survivability might be less than .5s . Either way, the player is going to die when they are focused fired.

[Justine.6351]

> @DeadlySynz.3471 said:

> Your characters (well everyone's character actually) will get blown up in fights regardless whether whether you are wearing: Blue, Green, Yellow, Exotic, or Ascended gear. This happens when one is hit from multiple sources and/or CC locked.

>

> Damage is higher yes all around; however, if one person was focused by 5 people between now and vanilla GW2; the difference in survivability might be less than .5s . Either way, the player is going to die when they are focused fired.

 

Lols I remember when people cried about how op bulls charge + hundred blades was.

[ArchonWing.9480]

Just build condi. Power needs better gear to scale as they need to build on 3 stats while condi just needs 2, if even. In addition you also negate any toughness advantage from gear your opponent could have.

 

Furthermore, the often quoted 10-15% is in regards to FULL exotic vs FULL ascended. In practice most of the stat difference is weighted towards trinkets which is also are more or less free and weapons can be gotten fairly cheaply. Full Ascended vs Exotic Armor and rest ascended is only a 2 percent difference:

And not to mention it would be considering you hitting a pve target that never moves, never heals, never retreats, never blocks, and never cleanses. It is highly likely that you will lose more battles to lag then you ever will to a difference in gear, duels excepted.

[X T D.6458]

Ascended gear is not the problem, poor class balance is.

[xDudisx.5914]

> @"X T D.6458" said:

> Ascended gear is not the problem, poor class balance is.

 

Exactly this. Scourge would melt you if you are melee even without ascended

[FitzChevalerie.1035]

scourgewil melt ppl even wearing green gear tbh. its just ridiculous the amount of stacks they can constantly keep up on you

 

[Offair.2563]

> @"X T D.6458" said:

> Ascended gear is not the problem, poor class balance is.

 

^This. Anet keeps buffing damage leaving your stats ( hp and the like ) the same.