Grand Master Marks, Outlook from a new player.

Hey guys so I am a new, well actually returning player (played for about a month or 2 years ago and just returned). And have seen this extremely flawed system, and just wanted to bring to light my opinion of how flawed it is.

Now as a PvP player, that was also intrigued by WvW, I needed ascended gear. So fresh into the game, I saw that and began work in that direction. I wanted the PvP armor, as I was doing that pre season ending. Then I found Grand Master Marks.

So lets look at the reality that is Grand Master Marks, I have my shards/skirmish tickets, I know need Grandmaster Marks, I get from reading around this is to keep "Ascended Difficult/Time Consuming". So we are going to math that out. We are going to look at chest pieces in a vacuum obvious each piece would be different in requirements however a similar pattern can be seen for the entire set.

So for PvP we need (using Byzantium as the source of shards) 180 pips. Assuming, a 50/50 win loss ratio, That is 28 games in PvP, times the average of 10 mins a match + Q time, that is 4.66 hours in PvP per box, you would need to complete 4 for a total of 18.66 hours for 1 chest piece.

In WvW the system is even worse, You must first unlock the Exotic box through the reward track, granted that can be achieved while earning the skirmish tickets. That said, for a new WvW player, it takes 30 hours in a week to complete all chests once, that will give you enough tickets to craft 1 chest piece and have a slight amount left over.

Now once, you have completed your 19/30 hour grind, you have to craft Grand Master Marks, this requires level 500 in a craft of the armor choice. After which the cost of crafting a Grand Master Mark, right now isCarbonized Mithrillium Ingot 4.4g x1Square of Vabbian Silk 5.5g x2Blended Leather Sheet 6.2g x1Bolt of Empowered Silk 4.45g x1Bolt of Silk x150 2.11gVial of Might 1.05gVial of Magic 1.29g

Total for 1 Grand Master Tailors Mark, 26.05ga Chest Piece needs 4. That is 104.2g for the Marks for the Chest piece, now keep in mind that is on top of the 19 hours of PvP, or 30 hours of WvW.

So now to a normal Crafted Ascended Piece.Damask Coat Lining 34.90g x1Damask Coat Panel 7.38g x1Morbachs Dire Insignia 65g x1 (Ascended Insignia, can vary, but I will use the one I would use as an Example.)Vision Crystal Free (1 hour farming tops)

Total for Morbach's Doublet, 107.28, + the 3g for the recipe so say 110.

We can now see that crafting a Dire Doublet Vs obtaining one through PvP is a 6g difference and a 18 hour time difference in farming, in WvW, the time difference scales up to 29 hours. As well as WvW adding a 4 week time gate to a full set.

Now I know 2 things will come up due to this,

1. The recipes are Time gated by Laurels, that is true however its not a bad gate, and you can have them within a month of login rewards and many will not need or be ready to craft ascended by then anyway.
2. What if you want HoT stats, as I did? So the MF reroll, cost a Exotic insignia plus the re roll cost. So for me, I had to buy the "Trailblazer's Intricate Gossamer Insignia" Recipe with HoT currency, and then craft them at 50g each. Plus the 5g fee to re roll (about) that is a 55 gold addition.

Now if a TB was wanted as it was for me, the cost for me was 165g, and 2 hours farming the materials (Vision crystal / TB insignia recipe) So 65g more, and 17 hours less time needed of playing to craft the Chest, vs PvP for the chest. Now at the average rate of 10g per hour, in SW farms, I could make another 150g in that time, that I PvPed lets not even look at WvW due to how much worse it is.

Now lets say we removed all time gating, So we crafted straight to Trailblazers.

Pahuas Doublet,Damask Coat Lining 34.90g x1Damask Coat Panel 7.38g x1Pahua's Trailblazer's Insignia x1 119.54gExotic TB insignia 50gPile of Crystaline dust .15g x10Jeweled Damask Pacth 22.68gVision Crystal

Total 161.82g

Now the recipe is buyable with gold on the TP at the price of, .37g lol, Which is strange especially seeing how the numbers for the 2 sets (Crafting direct or Rerolling) are so super close. In my case, I had Laurels I didn't have many Globs of Dark Matter, so I went with the reroll, though both are valid options. Though the Dark Matter could be farmed quite quickly by salvaging cheap exotics.

Now the farming required is very much the same, except add in more leyline shards are needed, so add another 2 hours to be gracious. So 4 hours farming in total, assuming that you have the gold of course (3 of those are a 1 time grind, and do not carry over to other pieces)

This means a player could, buy the game, go straight to HoT farm Leyline Crystals, buy the recipes, swipe 60 dollars, and have a full set of Ascended gear in a few days of owning the game, and not even playing that much.

Where as a PvPer, has to not only grind for hours upon hours, deal with time gating, and also pay 65%+ of the same amount of gold as it requires to straight up craft Ascended Armor. This is not okay, and yet in map chat and on the forums every time its broguht up its justified with "Ascended should take time" "Ascendeds Should be Hard", here is the thing, Ascendeds dont take time, they are not hard, IF you are a PvEr, the only people they take time or are hard for is the PvP community.

Some may not care, and they will farm in the broken system. Others like myself will see the broken system, and bypass it. You could Swipe 60 dollars, spent 1 hour raising all the crafts to 500, 3 hours unlocking recipes, 10 hours farming Vision Crystals, and craft a full set of Armor and weapons, in 2 days of playing. When to do so with PvP would take 18 hours and still swiping a similar amount just for the chest piece.

Anet, I really like this game, I do I am having alot of fun. However broken systems like this is not how you build a player base or get one to stay. Please re evaluate this system.

Oh, also Im sure it will be mentioned the above post assumes all gold swiped. But lets add that to the mix for those that want to farm the gold.

Average 10g per hour in SW, you can nix the 1 hour for vision crystals.

PVE Farmed gold for Ascended, 16 hours in SW.

PVP Farmed gold for Ascended, 8 hours in SW (This is assuming the on average 20g you will make from the 20 hours of PvP)

Total time investment, farming everything.

PVE 16 hours. (No time gate)

PVP 27 hours. (No time gate)

WVW 36 hours. (4 week time gate)

Now how can anyone, possibly see this and think this is a fair and balanced system in anyway shape or form?

Especially when you take into account, PvE as far as open world doesn't need Ascended Armor, PvP doesn't need Ascended Armor, WvW the game mode of the 3 that actually does need Ascended Armor, is the longest and hardest of the 3 to actually get said armor.

You are wasting over 30g just to save a few seconds of crafting ... Pahua's Doublet is around 125g if you want to both bypass timegates and don't want to wait for orders to fill. For marks it is around 98g. Trailblazer is probably the only stat where the marks come out cheaper due to the price of lilies.

Is ascended equipment really needed? I was under the impression that they were not a large upgrade from exotics, and that in WvW - the larger zerg always wins, regardless of gear.

There is really only one game mode that needs Ascended - Fractals.

In everything else, Ascended is a nice boost but not needed. Armor especially is a pretty small addition if you've already got trinkets and weapons, which are generally a lot easier to get.

@RAWR.4273 said:Is ascended equipment really needed? I was under the impression that they were not a large upgrade from exotics, and that in WvW - the larger zerg always wins, regardless of gear.

its nice to have and good for long term fights, but if you get the ascended then might as well get the legendary so that you can change stats easier when you feel like playing a different style on any character of that armor type. im currently working on the light pvp legendary but i crafted all my marks. the only crafting i haven't done was for weapons because i use pvp marks on ascended weapons.

I would be all okay with this ascended should take some time/gold to get if:

1. You would be able to get cheap and fast exotic gear with HoT or PoF stats
2. You wouldn't need ascended to slot infusions for agony resistance

There shouldn't be gameplay-relevant stuff like stat-combos or being able to play fractals gated behind ascended!

@Khisanth.2948 said:You are wasting over 30g just to save a few seconds of crafting ... Pahua's Doublet is around 125g if you want to both bypass timegates and don't want to wait for orders to fill. For marks it is around 98g. Trailblazer is probably the only stat where the marks come out cheaper due to the price of lilies.

Thats true, Lily price is high :P. However ya, like Beserkers gear, crafting is cheaper than Marks.

@RAWR.4273 said:Is ascended equipment really needed? I was under the impression that they were not a large upgrade from exotics, and that in WvW - the larger zerg always wins, regardless of gear.

Okay, ya that can be true, if you are a Zerg Player, I am not, my friends are not, we do small group and roaming. Where yes, the 15%ish stat difference between Ascended and Exotic is pretty big deal. Now Armor only makes up about 3-4% of that, however there is also the WvW Infusions to keep in mind, that is 30 more stat and more importantly 6% increased damage to WvW NPCs.

And on that note, there is a lot more people roaming/soloing then you might think, and during off hours the zergs get smaller, in a 100v100 it doesnt matter as much, in a 10 v 10 the differences can be pretty big. If you take that 15% and assume 1 group of 10 is in full exotic and the other in Ascended that is 150% more damage, and 140% more defenses on the Ascended group. Obviously those numbers still apply to the 100v100 though finding 100 players for a zerg that are not in Ascended gear in WvW would be quite tough lol.

@Tanner Blackfeather.6509 said:There is really only one game mode that needs Ascended - Fractals.

In everything else, Ascended is a nice boost but not needed. Armor especially is a pretty small addition if you've already got trinkets and weapons, which are generally a lot easier to get.

I agree, you dont really need Ascended Armor, honestly you dont really need it for fractals either. You can stack plenty of Agony on weapons and Jewelery, 2 rings have as many infusions slots as entire set of armor. Assuming you have Attuned/Infused Rings, which you should.

@Cyber Locc.9836 said:Okay, ya that can be true, if you are a Zerg Player, I am not, my friends are not, we do small group and roaming. Where yes, the 15%ish stat difference between Ascended and Exotic is pretty big deal. Now Armor only makes up about 3-4% of that, however there is also the WvW Infusions to keep in mind, that is 30 more stat and more importantly 6% increased damage to WvW NPCs.

Since the topic is strictly about Ascended armor, and you mentioned wanting Trailblazer, the total difference between 6 pieces of Ascended Trailblazer versus Exotic Trailblazer are as follows:

• 47 Defense
• 19 Toughness
• 110 Health
• 19 Condition Damage (not accounting for skill coefficients)
• 0.73% Condition Duration

Then you bring up 30 additional attributes missing due to the lack of Infusions. Since we are talking about Trailblazer, I'm going to assume damage source will be Condition Damage based, and therefore using Malign Infusions. In that case, missing the 49 Condition Damage results in the loss of...

• 7.595 Burn damage per stack
• 2.94 Bleed damage per stack
• 2.2 Torment damage per stack while stationary
• 4.41 Torment damage per stack while moving
• 1.715 Confusion damage per stack while idle
• 3 Confusion damage per stack when using skill

So we're looking at a 1.3% stat difference between a set of Ascended armor and Exotic, roughly contributing a 3% damage loss in Condition Damage. Competitive Player versus Player encounters are games of inches; unfortunately, I don't think this difference is even that.

@Crystal Black.8190 said:I would be all okay with this ascended should take some time/gold to get if:

1. You would be able to get cheap and fast exotic gear with HoT or PoF stats
2. You wouldn't need ascended to slot infusions for agony resistance

There shouldn't be gameplay-relevant stuff like stat-combos or being able to play fractals gated behind ascended!

There are reward tracks for exotic helm, shoulder, glove, and boots with HoT stats.

PoF has entire armor sets but only for Harrier and Marshal.

@Cyber Locc.9836 said:I agree, you dont really need Ascended Armor, honestly you dont really need it for fractals either. You can stack plenty of Agony on weapons and Jewelery, 2 rings have as many infusions slots as entire set of armor. Assuming you have Attuned/Infused Rings, which you should.

Well you dont need them but reducing the amount of infusion slots because you miss ascended increases the amount of agony resistance you need to put on trinkets/rings. So instead of +8/9 infusions you need +12/13 infusions which are way more expensive so you could invest in ascended directly instead in infusions. You probably are cheaper getting ascended than putting more agony on trinkets/weapons.

@Khisanth.2948 said:

There are reward tracks for exotic helm, shoulder, glove, and boots with HoT stats.

PoF has entire armor sets but only for Harrier and Marshal.

Being able to get HoT stats in PvP/WvW-Tracks isnt the point. The point is that there are nearly no ways to get Non-Core stats. Compare the ways to get berserker to the ways to get viper or trailblazer. There are no drops with HoT stats, there is no karma-vendor, there are no armor-pieces buyable with map currency (except wanderer), craftable armor is not tradable unlike core-stats.I havent played PoF that much so far, but i havent noticed there would have changed much in stat-availability.

@Crystal Black.8190 said:

@Cyber Locc.9836 said:I agree, you dont really need Ascended Armor, honestly you dont really need it for fractals either. You can stack plenty of Agony on weapons and Jewelery, 2 rings have as many infusions slots as entire set of armor. Assuming you have Attuned/Infused Rings, which you should.

@Khisanth.2948 said:

There are reward tracks for exotic helm, shoulder, glove, and boots with HoT stats.

PoF has entire armor sets but only for Harrier and Marshal.

Well people are complaining about stuff being expensive for wvw and wvw is where you can get them for cheap so that is very much the point.

Well you missed out on the glory that was season 5, so did I. However use your 3 free marks each season for 1 free piece and crafted the rest with farmed gold. That's your fast real option, but if you narrow down the armor type you prefer it's not really too bad. Use your marks on a free weapon, craft the armor, get all your trinkets via lw3 which only takes a few weeks - mainly cause of hideous ruby grind.

I'd like maybe 6 free marks per season, which would be reasonable and fair but I doubt it will happen.

@Khisanth.2948 said:

@Crystal Black.8190 said:I would be all okay with this ascended should take some time/gold to get if:

1. You would be able to get cheap and fast exotic gear with HoT or PoF stats
2. You wouldn't need ascended to slot infusions for agony resistance

There shouldn't be gameplay-relevant stuff like stat-combos or being able to play fractals gated behind ascended!

5 hours per piece (Or 8 if you not using any boost) isn't exactly what one would call fast. It takes a mininum of 30 hours to get a full set of Triumphant or Crystal Desert armor to get exotics of any stat... WvW always been the redhead stepchild when it comes to receiving shinies, and funny enough, it's the most stat intensive of all 3 game modes.

It is cheap.

As for speed ... I am not sure. If I wanted grieving stat I would have to be grinding legendary bounties. That doesn't strike me as being fast. On the other hand harrier and marshal I can make at any time assuming they didn't require their own recipe sheets and if they do that will take much longer.

Stat intensive? Uh sure ...

@Cyber Locc.9836 said:Okay, ya that can be true, if you are a Zerg Player, I am not, my friends are not, we do small group and roaming. Where yes, the 15%ish stat difference between Ascended and Exotic is pretty big deal. Now Armor only makes up about 3-4% of that, however there is also the WvW Infusions to keep in mind, that is 30 more stat and more importantly 6% increased damage to WvW NPCs.

Speaking strictly in the upgraded gear quality in regards to damage output:

• Upgrading Weapon = 5.87%
• Upgrading Trinkets = 4.10%
• Upgrading Armor = 1.56%
• Adding Infusions = 2.87%
• Note Used Berserker/Mighty gear as a simple comparison. Condi gear various much more radically.

Thus, you would only really need to budget for the weapon(s) which is dramatically cheaper to make than most armors whether it be by crafting outright or using the Grandmaster Marks system. Trinkets are essentially free if you have the LS3 maps just require a bit of farming (goes by faster with multiple toons). Otherwise you would need to do other activities to build up the currencies to buy them.

So with weapons and trinkets alone you get about a +10% damage boost. If you were to add just the infusions to your weapons and trinkets you would get +60 Power (~2 damage increase) plus an additional +12% damage increase against guards.

To bring this back full circle though. Marks aren't the only way to get gear. Heck if I was a WvW I would ignore marks and just power level to 500 crafting and buy the material off the TP if the damage boost was that crucial to me. The only instances where Ascended gear is require is Fractals, and at that point you're either having to budget for really expensive infusions, or you're going for 100% ascended gear.

@Despond.2174 said:Well you missed out on the glory that was season 5, so did I. However use your 3 free marks each season for 1 free piece and crafted the rest with farmed gold. That's your fast real option, but if you narrow down the armor type you prefer it's not really too bad. Use your marks on a free weapon, craft the armor, get all your trinkets via lw3 which only takes a few weeks - mainly cause of hideous ruby grind.

I'd like maybe 6 free marks per season, which would be reasonable and fair but I doubt it will happen.

Yes I did, and 3 free marks is not nearly enough, it takes 4 just for 1 chest, and that's 3 free marks per 3 months. Absurd lol.

@savacli.8172 said:

@Cyber Locc.9836 said:Okay, ya that can be true, if you are a Zerg Player, I am not, my friends are not, we do small group and roaming. Where yes, the 15%ish stat difference between Ascended and Exotic is pretty big deal. Now Armor only makes up about 3-4% of that, however there is also the WvW Infusions to keep in mind, that is 30 more stat and more importantly 6% increased damage to WvW NPCs.

• Upgrading Weapon = 5.87%
• Upgrading Trinkets = 4.10%
• Upgrading Armor = 1.56%
• Adding Infusions = 2.87%
• Note
  Used Berserker/Mighty gear as a simple comparison. Condi gear various much more radically.

Your 100% missing infusions in there, yes you added the 5 to a stat. You left out the 18% damage increase to Guards, Supervisors, Lord's, which is extremely important especially as a roamer, it can make the difference between capping that camp, and dying trying.The 5 Condi is nice, but it isn't everything.

Also I don't know why everyone keeps referencing me and getting exotics or lvs3 stuff ECT. I already have 2 full light sets, 7 weapons and 2 sets of jewelery all ascended lol. That isn't the point here, the point is that PvPers and WvWers grind and win ECT to get rewards that comparablely are worthless.

The only valid excuse here is the legendary upgrade. Which is the only reason I will be buying the WvW Ascended.

However as stated, there is options, give us a reward track with marks, or mark pieces or something.

The issue with season 5 ascendeds was that it required no gold and was too easy to complete, they fixed both of those, drastically increased games needed to complete track, and added the marks. That was a double nerf and not needed.

It's not going to affect me, I already have a ton of ascended, will get the WvW stuff and will make it legendary. And I will swipe my way there, because WvW and PvP doesn't make gold anywhere near pve.

However I will not farm silverwastes for hours on end for 10g an hour, when I make 50 irl and can swipe 500 for that same hour. And alot of PvPers likely feel this way, everyone I know does, and that is likely the intent of the Marks to begin with. They see the likes of Archeage cashing in on PvPers like myself who spent thousands, and they want a taste. However as it did there, it will likely destroy the game.

And further Salvaci, if above is there plan, it's working. I started this game maybe a month ago, leveled to 80, swiped full Ascended (short of jewelery where it's mixed PvP and LVS3), I started with 3 friends, and they all are the same, all are PvP players, and combined have spent a tad over 2k dollars on this game in that month.

And with that, legendaries to buy/make, so we will spend more. That doesn't concern me, we all spent alot more on AA then we likely ever could here. The point is, I like this game and don't want to see it turn into Archeage and go down on flames (at least the PvP scene) due to being overly greedy and bad design. Which from what I have seen/Read, has already been happening and is just getting worse.

@Ojimaru.8970 said:

@Cyber Locc.9836 said:Okay, ya that can be true, if you are a Zerg Player, I am not, my friends are not, we do small group and roaming. Where yes, the 15%ish stat difference between Ascended and Exotic is pretty big deal. Now Armor only makes up about 3-4% of that, however there is also the WvW Infusions to keep in mind, that is 30 more stat and more importantly 6% increased damage to WvW NPCs.

• 47 Defense
• 19 Toughness
• 110 Health
• 19 Condition Damage (not accounting for skill coefficients)
• 0.73% Condition Duration

• 7.595 Burn damage per stack
• 2.94 Bleed damage per stack
• 2.2 Torment damage per stack while stationary
• 4.41 Torment damage per stack while moving
• 1.715 Confusion damage per stack while idle
• 3 Confusion damage per stack when using skill

That's a 3% difference to players and NPCs on top of the 6% extra damage to NPCs, that's a 9% difference to NPCs. When capping a camp solo, you are looking at about 10 secs (without the full damage buffs) so a 1 sec difference. 1 sec, could make or break capping that camp, on top of good forbid a player shows up while killing those NPCs leaving you fighting players and NPCs .

Then we can also look at the fact that is also a 3% decrease in defense against players, and things start to look worse.

On top of the fact, we then take that and look off of roamers and look into having teams. That 3% when rolling with my 5 man havoc group, just became a 15% difference assuming everyone is full ascended. Against a Lord, that damage just shot up to 45% damage.

Now let's look at a 10 man havoc group, we now see a 30% damage increase, and you can quickly see where these numbers will become a problem.

So we are trying to get other friends to come to this game, as I am a GL, and if some do come or we decide to take this game semi seriously. Full ascended for WvW will be a requirement. Because I reality the only people that think, Ascened doesn't matter in WvW are people that don't WvW or don't take that type of thing seriously. As someone else stated, WvW is the most stat dependant game mode this game has. A second on raids, a second on fractals, a second in open world is usually not game ending. A second in WvW very much so is.

@Cyber Locc.9836 said:On top of the fact, we then take that and look off of roamers and look into having teams. That 3% when rolling with my 5 man havoc group, just became a 15% difference assuming everyone is full ascended. Against a Lord, that damage just shot up to 45% damage.

Now let's look at a 10 man havoc group, we now see a 30% damage increase, and you can quickly see where these numbers will become a problem.

Your maths... it astounds me... I don't even...

@Ojimaru.8970 said:

@Cyber Locc.9836 said:On top of the fact, we then take that and look off of roamers and look into having teams. That 3% when rolling with my 5 man havoc group, just became a 15% difference assuming everyone is full ascended. Against a Lord, that damage just shot up to 45% damage.

Now let's look at a 10 man havoc group, we now see a 30% damage increase, and you can quickly see where these numbers will become a problem.

How does the math astound you?

If 1 player in full ascended deals 3% more damage, then 5 players deal 15% more damage. In what world is that not common sense?

Or did you mean the Lord part? Well we have the base 15% that has already been covered. Then we add in the fact that each armor piece, with WvW infusions gives another 1% each, 6 pieces of armor, so 6% each person x 5 people equals a damage increase of 30% against Lord's, so that is a 45% damage increase against Lord's.

Or oh, you think you are correct in that the number are meaningless. Well sorry your wrong, yes small numbers bruh. Guess what else is small, a bee sting. Getting stung by a bee isn't bad, life goes on. Getting stung by 100 bees is not small and life won't go on.

It's the same prinicapal, the damage increase may seem small, but it adds up fast with more players.

Even with your example for my Condis increases, yes those are small increases let's take the bleed. 2.94 damage per stack x tick.

Now I can pretty quickly apply 50 stacks of bleed. For a total of 147 damage, now that isnt a 147 flat, that is 147 per second. After 5 seconds that has become 735 damage, now let's assume the other gains are exactly the same, I know they aren't, let's just assume.

That would be 735 x Condis, let's say 4 Condis that is 3k extra, unlockable damage in that 5 secs. That is enough to change a fight from winning to losing.

I realize that is a bad example, the numbers actually may be higher as running with torment, and burns. But let's just stick with that for simplicity. I think you guys that think oh that tiny bit of Condi damage don't matter, are the ones screaming about scourge because you can't grasp the idea of condition damage.

Let's look back at just bleeds for a second, if 10 people were bleeding at that increased rate, that would be 7350 extra damage per second from the team being in ascended.

The fact of the matter remains, Ascended gear is better in WvW it is an advantage, and it is needed. Whether you think so or not is irrelvant.

Or maybe you are speaking about my 3% numbers? As you stated as a decrease? I'm tired, and your numbers are wrong anyway. It's actually techinacally a 1.9% stat increase, realiotion to damage is not set, but fine. Change the 3 to a 2, and things are the same.

Dp please delete.

@Ojimaru.8970 said:

@Cyber Locc.9836 said:On top of the fact, we then take that and look off of roamers and look into having teams. That 3% when rolling with my 5 man havoc group, just became a 15% difference assuming everyone is full ascended. Against a Lord, that damage just shot up to 45% damage.

Now let's look at a 10 man havoc group, we now see a 30% damage increase, and you can quickly see where these numbers will become a problem.

Hold on a second, let me tell my raid group that +3% damage from infusions is gonna lead to a +30% in a 10 man squad.

Seriously though, I'm looking for the hidden camera to pop out anytime. There's no way OP can be missing that bad on his math.

@savacli.8172 said:

@Ojimaru.8970 said:

@Cyber Locc.9836 said:On top of the fact, we then take that and look off of roamers and look into having teams. That 3% when rolling with my 5 man havoc group, just became a 15% difference assuming everyone is full ascended. Against a Lord, that damage just shot up to 45% damage.

Now let's look at a 10 man havoc group, we now see a 30% damage increase, and you can quickly see where these numbers will become a problem.

What are you talking about?

I said the 3% damage increase, for 1 person in ascended Armor right?

So now, imagine that there is 10 people in a group attacking the same target and they are all in ascended gear, say a raid, as you said your raiding group.

And there is another group of 10, doing the same objective. This group is in fully in exotic gear.

Now each player in the ascended group does 3% more damage, so therefore the entire group does 30% more damage than the exotic group.

Or do you mean a 5 man group does 30% more damage on top of the 15% TO WvW NPCs, because that is also correct, due to a thing called WvW infusions that increase damage, 1% per infusion.

There is nothing wrong with my Math, there is something wrong with both or your reading comprehension and or game knowledge.

Let's make it easier,3% damage increase per person X 10 people, = 30% group damage increase.

When you add players that each have 3% additional damage, that adds up.Player 1 does 3% addintional damage, we are at 3%Player 2 does 3% addintional damage, we are at 6%Player 3 does 3% addintional damage, we are at 9%ECT, ECT, until we reach 30% additional damage.

6% damage increase against NPCs + 3% base damage increase x 10 people = 90% Group Damage increase to NPCs. (Actually more, because the base damage modifers happen before the NPC modifers on Infusions but we will leave it as is for simplicity)

Better question how did you get into a raid group not understanding the basic principals of group Dynamics?

You're missing one key factor here. Each person only brings a percentage of the group's damage. Let me spell it out in crayons...

For the sake of control I'm only talking about strict gear upgrade and leaving out runes, sigils, noms, buffs, etc since that changes the percentages:

{Story Time!]

There was a group a friends all geared in exotic, and they do the following damage when they go roaming:

• Bob: 10,000 DPS
• Sally: 10,000 DPS
• Billy: 10,000 DPS
• Suzy: 10,000 DPS
• Jimmy: 10,000 DPS
• Total: 50,000 DPS

They thought to themselves "It's kinda weird that everyone does the same damage", but they decided to get over that since it makes it easier to look at graphs.

It's Billy's birthday so his group decides to get him a full set of ascended gear. Billy is so happy that he tops off the set by infusing and attuning all his gear so he can have all 18 infusions slots. Thus, Billy gets about +11.53% power damage from upgrading his gear to ascended, another +2.87% from the +90 Power in the infusions, and then another +18% against WvW NPC's since he got the fancy infusions that give him additional damage against WvW NPC's. Now, At this point Billy thinks he is going to bring the groups DPS up by 32.4% so he compares himself to everyone else after the next time they make their rounds:

• Bob: 10,000 DPS
• Sally: 10,000 DPS
• Billy: 13,240 DPS (super fancy)
• Suzy: 10,000 DPS
• Jimmy: 10,000 DPS
• Total: 53,240 DPS

....but what Billy forgot was that he only accounts for 1/5 of his team's damage. Thus, the group's overall damage only got bumped up by 6.48% since everyone else was still in exotic gear.

Well, everyone got together and decided that they were going to give each other early Christmas gifts this winter and, BEHOLD, everyone is now running that fancy ascended gear with them fancy infusions. The next time they go out roaming they notice a HUGE increase in their damage and decide to run the numbers:

• Bob: 13,240 DPS (super fancy)
• Sally: 13,240 DPS (super fancy)
• Billy: 13,240 DPS (super fancy)
• Suzy: 13,240 DPS (super fancy)
• Jimmy: 13,240 DPS (super fancy)
• Total: 66.200 DPS (super fancy)

"WOWZERS" they thought to themselves. The groups overall damage bumped up by 32.4% once everyone geared up. Billy admitted to the rest of his group that he previously thought that the group's DPS would increase by+ 162% if everyone upgraded their gear (+32.4% x the 5 of them), but everyone just laughed when they heard that.

[End Story time]

Silly story time aside....

When talking about damage modifiers you have to look at how that modifier is applied. If a single player in a group of 10 gets +3% damage that only translates to +0.3% damage since a single player only accounts for 1/10 of the group's damage. Of course, this is simplified math and damage is weighed differently. As in fully gearing a healer from exotic to ascended will have realistically no impact on your group's overall damage output as the damage healer's do is next to nothing. However a single DPS player upgrading gear will be more noticeable since they carry a larger percentage of the group's damage.

Oh, and how did I get into a raid group? Simple, I can math and take constructive criticism well from others

Edit: Personally, I fully enjoy the gear availability in this game. Grandmaster Marks are just another method to get ascended gear. PvE, PvP, and WvW each have their own way of providing ascended gear as drops. There are also dozens of collections that award Ascended gear. Best of all, unlike traditional MMO's, Ascended gear isn't locked behind a certain dungeon/raid that you have to farm over and over just to get a particular drop (legendary grade gear aside as that is intentionally meant to be grindy). As in all ascended gear is equal to one another regardless of where you got/bought it.

So, if you want to swipe you credit card and buy everything off of the TP....I mean, that's your choice, but the availability for the gear is huge. If you don't like Marks, that's fine, the gear is available elsewhere if you wan to pursue it.

@savacli.8172 said:You're missing one key factor here. Each person only brings a percentage of the group's damage. Let me spell it out in crayons...

For the sake of control I'm only talking about strict gear upgrade and leaving out runes, sigils, noms, buffs, etc since that changes the percentages:

{Story Time!]

There was a group a friends all geared in exotic, and they do the following damage when they go roaming:

• Bob: 10,000 DPS
• Sally: 10,000 DPS
• Billy: 10,000 DPS
• Suzy: 10,000 DPS
• Jimmy: 10,000 DPS
• Total: 50,000 DPS

They thought to themselves "It's kinda weird that everyone does the same damage", but they decided to get over that since it makes it easier to look at graphs.

It's Billy's birthday so his group decides to get him a full set of ascended gear. Billy is so happy that he tops off the set by infusing and attuning all his gear so he can have all 18 infusions slots. Thus, Billy gets about +11.53% power damage from upgrading his gear to ascended, another +2.87% from the +90 Power in the infusions, and then another +18% against WvW NPC's since he got the fancy infusions that give him additional damage against WvW NPC's. Now, At this point Billy thinks he is going to bring the groups DPS up by 32.4% so he compares himself to everyone else after the next time they make their rounds:

• Bob: 10,000 DPS
• Sally: 10,000 DPS
• Billy: 13,240 DPS (super fancy)
• Suzy: 10,000 DPS
• Jimmy: 10,000 DPS
• Total: 53,240 DPS

....but what Billy forgot was that he only accounts for 1/5 of his team's damage. Thus, the group's overall damage only got bumped up by 6.48% since everyone else was still in exotic gear.

Well, everyone got together and decided that they were going to give each other early Christmas gifts this winter and, BEHOLD, everyone is now running that fancy ascended gear with them fancy infusions. The next time they go out roaming they notice a HUGE increase in their damage and decide to run the numbers:

• Bob: 13,240 DPS (super fancy)
• Sally: 13,240 DPS (super fancy)
• Billy: 13,240 DPS (super fancy)
• Suzy: 13,240 DPS (super fancy)
• Jimmy: 13,240 DPS (super fancy)
• Total: 66.200 DPS (super fancy)

"WOWZERS" they thought to themselves. The groups overall damage bumped up by 32.4% once everyone geared up. Billy admitted to the rest of his group that he previously thought that the group's DPS would increase by+ 162% if everyone upgraded their gear (+32.4% x the 5 of them), but everyone just laughed when they heard that.

[End Story time]

Silly story time aside....

When talking about damage modifiers you have to look at how that modifier is applied. If a single player in a group of 10 gets +3% damage that only translates to +0.3% damage since a single player only accounts for 1/10 of the group's damage. Of course, this is simplified math and damage is weighed differently. As in fully gearing a healer from exotic to ascended will have realistically no impact on your group's overall damage output as the damage healer's do is next to nothing. However a single DPS player upgrading gear will be more noticeable since they carry a larger percentage of the group's damage.

Oh, and how did I get into a raid group? Simple, I can math and take constructive criticism well from others

Edit: Personally, I fully enjoy the gear availability in this game. Grandmaster Marks are just another method to get ascended gear. PvE, PvP, and WvW each have their own way of providing ascended gear as drops. There are also dozens of collections that award Ascended gear. Best of all, unlike traditional MMO's, Ascended gear isn't locked behind a certain dungeon/raid that you have to farm over and over just to get a particular drop (legendary grade gear aside as that is intentionally meant to be grindy). As in all ascended gear is equal to one another regardless of where you got/bought it.

So, if you want to swipe you credit card and buy everything off of the TP....I mean, that's your choice, but the availability for the gear is huge. If you don't like Marks, that's fine, the gear is available elsewhere if you wan to pursue it.

Dude, you just said, EXACTLY WHAT I Said!

Moving on, we don't know exact numbers, for a imiganary groups, so the way I presented it was the only reasonable way. The same way, you just presented it.

You then make a comment, "Healers don't make a damage increase" which is fine, and I agree, and in most games, that could be a factor in GW2 WvW healers don't exist, and I actually quite frequently see groups of 10 daredevils, 10 scourges ECT. You are trying to fit PvP into your PvE cookie cutter and it doesn't exist there.

The point is not, that the gear can be aquired elsewhere, the issue is the way they aquired in this game mode. Last I checked LI ascended doesn't require marks, the LI Legendary, take less time, by alot and cost less gold. It's easy for someone that is on the side of favoritism to be blind from it isn't it.

And it isn't just PvP and WvW, Fractal players get the short end too.

So you mentioned other games, your right in the fact that other games, have gear locked behind Dungeons and raids. Those same games have equal gear or superior for purpose, in PvP, with different skins only obtainable in each mode. I do not care raiders get a different skin, that earns prestidge, they deserve that. However a A PvPer so do I. Yet, no that we are on the subject, we get an exotic skin, fine, we the same skin used all the way up to Mistforged. Now when we make it legendary, we don't even get skins, Raiders do. Yet we pay substainally more time and gold then raiders or even fractal players (mostly time). We get T3 skins you could argue, and you would be right, if you cap full prizes every week for 2 years you can get the t3 skin, difference by a mile.

Take WoW, in the past wow had PvP gear and PvE gear, with different stats that made it useful in 1 game mode vs another. If GW used such a system that would be fine, it would fix alot of other issues as well.

Wow has changed that system, (against PvPers wishes) to be that raiders and PvPers get the same gear, with different skins, it's RNG to get the gear, however it's RNG for raiders and it's RNG for PvPers, this is completely acceptable. The system that GWs has, is unbalanced and not acceptable. The only people that will say it is acceptable is raiders, as the target of the favoritism.

Then we can take ESO, every single person has the same opportunity for gear, the few limited "Raid" gear, and "PvP gear" are only obtaible in those modes and only useful in the modes in which they are used.

So are you getting the jist here? Every other game has an equal gearing system, every game EXCEPT gw2. GW2 goes even further to gate us by a currency that is rarely given in our game mode. You make very little gold doing PvP that is reserved for PvE play, which is fine, until it becomes a gate in advancement of gear in the game mode.

As has been stated, there would be nothing wrong with marks, if they were obtainable outside of gold, such as the repeatable box in PvP and WvW, as of now they are unobtainable in WvW, and 3 per season cap in PvP, that is not acceptable period.

Also talking to other people, about someone, in the way you did is not constructive criticism lol.