So being as I've sort of taken it upon myself to be the guild guinea pig for carelessness/silliness/experimentation regarding ascended items (I accidentally created Book of Secrets when I wanted Quiver of Swift Flight), I just thought I'd share:
It occurs to me that I shouldn't have transmuted my Book of Secrets before upgrading it to the infused version. Haven't been able to test yet of course, but I think that now, either I can't use my book in the forge to upgrade at all, or if the recipe still works, I'd lose the Halloween skin in the exchange.
Anyway, I wound up with this:
And in the aftermath, here's some general info on Ascended back pieces and Ascended stuff in general.
Ways to Get an Ascended Back Piece
1. Buy and Upgrade a Fractal Capacitor
2. Directly forge a Book or Quiver using T6 Mats
For those that don't know, once you have an ascended back piece, there's another (incredibly expensive) recipe to give it "pre-baked" agony resistance. It'll be called Such and Such (Infused). I think I screwed myself out of the ability to do that with this piece. Note: any infusion you place into a back piece is removed as part of the cost of upgrading to the infused version, so stick with Simple infusions until you actually get the infused version (or unless you're dumb, like me).
Sort of a bummer, but it has the "regular" stats (unrelated to agony) I've always wanted, so I sort of decided that I'll use it as my "everyday" back piece- right stats, can unhide to light jumping puzzles, will throw a niceprecisevital infusion in it eventually or so, and not worry about pre-infusing it. It'll keep me going through tier 2 fractals no problem.
Then I'll eventually get one of the +tough/vit quivers to actually infuse and use in higher-level fractals when I'd have to gear for survivability anyway. Plus, I really only ever use the shortbow in support spec, so it'd make sense visually that way too.
It fits into my character's horizontal progression too- eventually I'll just have another armor slot to right-click when switching builds.
General stuff/thoughts about ascended gear from the experience:
-Even though this was really a ton of work to get and I got the wrong piece like an idiot (luckily it had the right stats and the bonus of a def. infusion slot), I must say I really enjoyed the experience of assembling everything together, slowly building up my stacks of blood and ectos over time, then going for it all at once with all my gold-on-hand at the end (and thanks again to Antigens for getting me the final pieces! GAFGuild4lyfe! <3) Plus it's cool knowing I have an item that only a handful of other people in the guild have. It sort of made me understand why people put all the effort required into getting a legendary. The payoff is actually really exciting when you're done.
-I still have two rings to compound my character with, but on the "vertical progression makes me want to strangle a ferret" angle: anyone freaking out about the stat boost provided by the current batch of ascended gear is quite frankly hysterical, and not just in the good way that means funny. I made quite a big jump with this upgrade- from a green back piece with stats I didn't care about to an Ascended version with "perfect" stats- and I have to say I really don't feel noticeably stronger. There's a really important thing that people neglect in these arguments, and that's this: no matter what the future brings, best-in-slot gear is not a limiting factor in GW2. It's not not a significant change to the stat total. This definitely makes etiolate's point valid, why have the token stat boost at all? I think ANet's answer would be that for every person who would prefer no stat increase ever, there's an account telling them they're bored with fully maxed gear and have nothing to work toward. It's a compromise, and one that seems silly for the time being but I do still have faith in them.
-I think that with all the chaos over there being vertical progression of any sort, players miss out on the immeasurably more important point of how important vertical progression is to success. Last night, to do fractals with my level 72 mesmer, my gear was rare, but outdated- about 10 levels old. Before the run I kitted him out in pure GREEN level 70 gear- armor and weapons, for a total of about 14 silver. Someone from that run: back me up that I soloed like 5 veteran krait and saved us at that one part
I don't know how to put it a simpler way: this isn't PR-speak, skill really is more important than gear in Guild Wars 2. I don't have enough experience with other MMOs to understand how much it really differs from them. But if you have gear at your level and are having a ton of trouble with some kind of content, the odds quite good that improving your gear is not suddenly going to make it a cakewalk. The most vertical progression that occurs in this game comes from your vertical progression in skill as a player. For example, when I first started experimenting with scepter on my Mesmer, I had no concept of timing the Shatters- now, doing a Mind Wrack before the 3rd Ether Bolt hit; hitting Cry of Frustration while channeling Confusing Images; building up 3 trash clones, swapping to sword, hitting Distortion and then Blurred Frenzy for like an hour of invulnerability- all second-nature. Can't tell you how little my gear had to do with any of this (though when I get my Centaur and Grenth sets it'll change my character forever- but that's pure horizontal progression).
-The "special" infusion recipes are way too expensive. Way, way too expensive. Look at this:
So that's my post on Ascended gear, having obtained my first piece. I hope you don't perceive what I've said as attempting to defend its inclusion in the game. I'm just describing its implementation since it's already here and moving forward and thinking about the future is infinitely better than whining about the aspects of the present we dislike.
edit: "Ways to Make Gold" post is coming soon, including some I hadn't learned about in time to use to help me buy this piece!
It occurs to me that I shouldn't have transmuted my Book of Secrets before upgrading it to the infused version. Haven't been able to test yet of course, but I think that now, either I can't use my book in the forge to upgrade at all, or if the recipe still works, I'd lose the Halloween skin in the exchange.
Anyway, I wound up with this:
And in the aftermath, here's some general info on Ascended back pieces and Ascended stuff in general.
Ways to Get an Ascended Back Piece
1. Buy and Upgrade a Fractal Capacitor
2. Directly forge a Book or Quiver using T6 Mats
For those that don't know, once you have an ascended back piece, there's another (incredibly expensive) recipe to give it "pre-baked" agony resistance. It'll be called Such and Such (Infused). I think I screwed myself out of the ability to do that with this piece. Note: any infusion you place into a back piece is removed as part of the cost of upgrading to the infused version, so stick with Simple infusions until you actually get the infused version (or unless you're dumb, like me).
Sort of a bummer, but it has the "regular" stats (unrelated to agony) I've always wanted, so I sort of decided that I'll use it as my "everyday" back piece- right stats, can unhide to light jumping puzzles, will throw a nice
Then I'll eventually get one of the +tough/vit quivers to actually infuse and use in higher-level fractals when I'd have to gear for survivability anyway. Plus, I really only ever use the shortbow in support spec, so it'd make sense visually that way too.
It fits into my character's horizontal progression too- eventually I'll just have another armor slot to right-click when switching builds.
General stuff/thoughts about ascended gear from the experience:
-Even though this was really a ton of work to get and I got the wrong piece like an idiot (luckily it had the right stats and the bonus of a def. infusion slot), I must say I really enjoyed the experience of assembling everything together, slowly building up my stacks of blood and ectos over time, then going for it all at once with all my gold-on-hand at the end (and thanks again to Antigens for getting me the final pieces! GAFGuild4lyfe! <3) Plus it's cool knowing I have an item that only a handful of other people in the guild have. It sort of made me understand why people put all the effort required into getting a legendary. The payoff is actually really exciting when you're done.
-I still have two rings to compound my character with, but on the "vertical progression makes me want to strangle a ferret" angle: anyone freaking out about the stat boost provided by the current batch of ascended gear is quite frankly hysterical, and not just in the good way that means funny. I made quite a big jump with this upgrade- from a green back piece with stats I didn't care about to an Ascended version with "perfect" stats- and I have to say I really don't feel noticeably stronger. There's a really important thing that people neglect in these arguments, and that's this: no matter what the future brings, best-in-slot gear is not a limiting factor in GW2. It's not not a significant change to the stat total. This definitely makes etiolate's point valid, why have the token stat boost at all? I think ANet's answer would be that for every person who would prefer no stat increase ever, there's an account telling them they're bored with fully maxed gear and have nothing to work toward. It's a compromise, and one that seems silly for the time being but I do still have faith in them.
-I think that with all the chaos over there being vertical progression of any sort, players miss out on the immeasurably more important point of how important vertical progression is to success. Last night, to do fractals with my level 72 mesmer, my gear was rare, but outdated- about 10 levels old. Before the run I kitted him out in pure GREEN level 70 gear- armor and weapons, for a total of about 14 silver. Someone from that run: back me up that I soloed like 5 veteran krait and saved us at that one part
I don't know how to put it a simpler way: this isn't PR-speak, skill really is more important than gear in Guild Wars 2. I don't have enough experience with other MMOs to understand how much it really differs from them. But if you have gear at your level and are having a ton of trouble with some kind of content, the odds quite good that improving your gear is not suddenly going to make it a cakewalk. The most vertical progression that occurs in this game comes from your vertical progression in skill as a player. For example, when I first started experimenting with scepter on my Mesmer, I had no concept of timing the Shatters- now, doing a Mind Wrack before the 3rd Ether Bolt hit; hitting Cry of Frustration while channeling Confusing Images; building up 3 trash clones, swapping to sword, hitting Distortion and then Blurred Frenzy for like an hour of invulnerability- all second-nature. Can't tell you how little my gear had to do with any of this (though when I get my Centaur and Grenth sets it'll change my character forever- but that's pure horizontal progression).-The "special" infusion recipes are way too expensive. Way, way too expensive. Look at this:
A simple infusion gets you the same +5 agony resist for like 1.5 fractal relics or something (not really, but they're pretty damn cheap). You're paying gold and gold and gold for an extra +5 to the stat of your choice. They are the ultimate prestige items, and you literally cannot see them on your character. The possibility of pursuing one of these right now is hilarious. On the other hand, I can't shake the feeling that all of this- all of it- is sort of the "first wave" Ascended gear, intentionally, stupidly tough to get for the "hardcore" crowd, and all generations of future Ascended gear and infusions will be trivially easy to get in comparison. I mention this by way of some advice: only go for super-expensive ascended gear right now if you're not going to be pissed when it's easier to get later on.
So that's my post on Ascended gear, having obtained my first piece. I hope you don't perceive what I've said as attempting to defend its inclusion in the game. I'm just describing its implementation since it's already here and moving forward and thinking about the future is infinitely better than whining about the aspects of the present we dislike.
edit: "Ways to Make Gold" post is coming soon, including some I hadn't learned about in time to use to help me buy this piece!
