Why is gear with HoT stats so hard to acquire?

Once you reach level 80 on any character you are presented with a choice which elite specialization to unlock first. Most(but not all) professions can choose between two playstyles which rely more on either power or condition damage. It isn't like you cannot play power firebrand, for example, but its true potential is with conditions, right?

Now, if you play a build focused on power you can go to the TP and buy berserker exotics. There you go! You are set.

But you want to play condition based build? Well, you should know that gear with expertise is something of a rarity. You can buy dire/rabid or carrion, but they are just an inferior substitutes for the real thing (viper). I feel like this in a way limits the choice of what you can play unless you spend hundreds of gold to make the shinies yourself.

Why is there such an imbalance? Why are some specs "locked" out of their true potential unless you go crafting which is also incredibly expensive? Is it so hard to add vendors with HoT stat spread in some of the new living world seasons? And please don't say that certain gear is only for raids/ high fractals - even if it was, you may want to know exactly how the profession plays with it, before you blow a fortune on crafting.

Honestly I feel a lot of that could be resolved with just decreasing the amount of flax required. If you craft vipers, or any HoT stat, you need 200 flax for just one piece of armor or weapon. So to craft a full set of 6 armor you need 1200 flax seeds just for that.

@ImTasty.2163 said:Honestly I feel a lot of that could be resolved with just decreasing the amount of flax required. If you craft vipers, or any HoT stat, you need 200 flax for just one piece of armor or weapon. So to craft a full set of 6 armor you need 1200 flax seeds just for that.

Back items and Trinkets with HoT stats are easy enough with the LS3 content. Mist accessories (Fractals/PvP/WvW) also have HoT stats as a selection.But, I’m looking at Yassiths Viper Insignia component list (the only variable when crafting Ascended), and I’m not seeing Flax anywhere.Exotic sure does require flax, but when Ascended is as easy as ever to obtain, why craft Exotic?

If you want Exotic, the PvP/WvW reward tracks are your friend. At least The Desert Armor Box, Triumphant, Legacy, and Glorious, contain Exotic Armor which you can select Vipers from. No crafting necessary.

Sinister is not hard to acquire, though, and it's core GW2, not HoT.

You think that's bad? All of my characters are Celestial and I can only make one Charged Quartz Crystal a day, I need 5 per armor piece and per weapon! :D Now I have full Light-Medium-Heavy Ascended sets but it took me several months to complete and I still make a Crystal every day because I don't have every weapon type yet. It's a pain in the Charr tail but I love my Celestials.

Is this really a problem these days? You can easily buy the ascended sinister(a CORE stat) recipes from the tp(if yassith are a problem) , make the ascended sinister weapon/armor and convert it to viper with an exotic viper insignia/inscription, 5 ectos, anthology of heroes. Or Just use sinister! HoT story also gives exotic viper stat box. As for trinkets/back item, LS3 maps have them all in abundance. All Hot stats can be bought off the tp. Which is good. Not everything has to be "i can buy it off the tp " easy.

@"Airdive.2613" said:Sinister is not hard to acquire, though, and it's core GW2, not HoT.

My bad, will edit the post. As for the comments claiming that it's easy to make ascended armor and converting it to viper or something, some plebs here, me included, did not have the luxury of playing for years to get "the best". Besides, if your most reliable option to acquire gear with certain stats is to craft the high-end-of-all-items...then something is clearly wrong. Crafted exotics like those are still very expensive to make and cannot be reforged like ascended stuff.

I'm not even asking that they add ascended gear, just cheap exotics like core ones which will allow more players to enjoy certain specs without farming for months and going broke along the way.

@"EpicName.4523" said:Once you reach level 80 on any character you are presented with a choice which elite specialization to unlock first. Most(but not all) professions can choose between two playstyles which rely more on either power or condition damage. It isn't like you cannot play power firebrand, for example, but its true potential is with conditions, right?

Now, if you play a build focused on power you can go to the TP and buy berserker exotics. There you go! You are set.

But you want to play condition based build? Well, you should know that gear with expertise is something of a rarity. You can buy dire/rabid or carrion, but they are just an inferior substitutes for the real thing (viper). I feel like this in a way limits the choice of what you can play unless you spend hundreds of gold to make the shinies yourself.

Why is there such an imbalance? Why are some specs "locked" out of their true potential unless you go crafting which is also incredibly expensive? Is it so hard to add vendors with HoT stat spread in some of the new living world seasons? And please don't say that certain gear is only for raids/ high fractals - even if it was, you may want to know exactly how the profession plays with it, before you blow a fortune on crafting.

For a lot of my viper gear I either take old Ascended gear with stats I no longer want and put in forge with exotic vipers inscription and change the stats. Sure you gotta buy the exotic recipe but that really isn't hard. I do same with grieving stats as well.Other option is to make the cheapest stat combo Ascended and do the same thing .. grieiving stats are as cheap as chips to get off the TP, tho others like vipers or mauraders you still need to craft up of course.

@Haleydawn.3764 said:

@ImTasty.2163 said:Honestly I feel a lot of that could be resolved with just decreasing the amount of flax required. If you craft vipers, or any HoT stat, you need 200 flax for just one piece of armor or weapon. So to craft a full set of 6 armor you need 1200 flax seeds just for that.

Because the OP mentioned buying the gear from the TP which means they are referring to exotics. As well, have you considered that the OP does not enjoy doing PvP and wvw? Maybe the OP enjoys doing open world and as such isn't concerned about getting ascended gear.

All of this still doesn't change the fact that should someone decide to craft the exotic it's costs an obscenely large amount of flax. There really is no reason that it should require 200 flax just for a single piece of armor.

I think op means crafting lvling too get said is too expensive

In the original game, gear was meant to be easy to acquire so it wasn't a barrier. A problem they quickly saw however was that people were getting fully geared within hours and were left with nothing to do. The stats added after launch are harder to acquire because they're meant to be something you have to work for in order to keep you playing.

@ImTasty.2163 said:

@Haleydawn.3764 said:

@ImTasty.2163 said:Honestly I feel a lot of that could be resolved with just decreasing the amount of flax required. If you craft vipers, or any HoT stat, you need 200 flax for just one piece of armor or weapon. So to craft a full set of 6 armor you need 1200 flax seeds just for that.

2g of flax per item is hardly unobtainable... but ok sure.

I explained non-crafting options which are available to all players. So you can stop being outraged for the OP where it truly isn’t warranted.

@Haleydawn.3764 said:

@ImTasty.2163 said:

@Haleydawn.3764 said:

@ImTasty.2163 said:Honestly I feel a lot of that could be resolved with just decreasing the amount of flax required. If you craft vipers, or any HoT stat, you need 200 flax for just one piece of armor or weapon. So to craft a full set of 6 armor you need 1200 flax seeds just for that.

Never once said it's unobtainable nor am I outraged. Please don't respond by placing words in my mouth.

I said that the amount of flax required to craft quite a bit of items is obscenely large. But please keep thinking I'm outraged. It's easier than actually responding to people.

@ImTasty.2163 said:

@Haleydawn.3764 said:

@ImTasty.2163 said:

@Haleydawn.3764 said:

@ImTasty.2163 said:Honestly I feel a lot of that could be resolved with just decreasing the amount of flax required. If you craft vipers, or any HoT stat, you need 200 flax for just one piece of armor or weapon. So to craft a full set of 6 armor you need 1200 flax seeds just for that.

Actually... You can buy the oiled parts needed for crafting exotic viper stuff from tp (which cost about the same price as by crafting them), and the only really necessary part you need to craft is the viper orichalcum inscription/insignia. So... Yeah. Things arent as bad, I hope!

@ImTasty.2163 said:

@"Haleydawn.3764" said:If you want Exotic, the PvP/WvW reward tracks are your friend. At least The Desert Armor Box, Triumphant, Legacy, and Glorious, contain Exotic Armor which you can select Vipers from. No crafting necessary.

Yes, I agree. Viper-exotic gear is quite expensive in relation to other stats.

Thats why I do not recommend exotic gear with Viper-stats. I you want exotic gear, use Sinister-stats instead. I you want to "unlock the potential" use ascended with viper-stats. You can also mix exotic-sinister gear with ascended viper-trinkets.

In all honesty, this is very true. Getting viper/minstrel is very annoyingly/unnecessarily hard compared to other builds, and wether u do WvW, Raid or open world PvP, you will need them for some classes. They literally have to just not make viper/minstrel account bound and then its all good.

I guess that is what this whole thread is about, why is these stats account bound, when other stats, used primarily by ele/thief/mesmer etc are not? It does simply not make sense, they are not superior to all classes in anyway, they are just better for some classes. They are just exotics, so if it was because they want to make it harder, then they would without a doubt also made it better for all.

@zengara.8301 said:They are just exotics, so if it was because they want to make it harder, then they would without a doubt also made it better for all.

A new stat combo that appealed to everyone would mean vertical progression. It would be a lot simpler of course if they relied on it, but would you rather have to obtain the grindiest stat once, or the easiest every expansion?

There is an an alternative however. A new type of combo that is a straight upgrade without increasing power, like berserker + x% magic find.

It's called it's going to cost you-- devs love to to make sure everything you want will cost you, be it time,grind, locked,soulbound or credit card.

@Haleydawn.3764 said:

@ImTasty.2163 said:

@Haleydawn.3764 said:

@ImTasty.2163 said:Honestly I feel a lot of that could be resolved with just decreasing the amount of flax required. If you craft vipers, or any HoT stat, you need 200 flax for just one piece of armor or weapon. So to craft a full set of 6 armor you need 1200 flax seeds just for that.

Closer to 3g per component, 2 component per item so around 6g.

When the general consensus is that you should directly skip Exotic gear (unless given as freebies from Collections etc) and go directly to Ascended because the Exotic ones are too expensive to make... yeah, you know something is out of whack.

@"zengara.8301" said:In all honesty, this is very true. Getting viper/minstrel is very annoyingly/unnecessarily hard compared to other builds, and wether u do WvW, Raid or open world PvP, you will need them for some classes.Meh, is it? Viper/minstrel is basicly free if you put in the time in WvW, which isnt very hard. Also you never need viper in WvW, that's literally walking in with a big bullseye over your head yelling "look at me I'm glass kill me kill me now!".

You can do what I did and farm the living world maps for the trinkets/ accessories/ back, get achievement weapons and reforge them, then run the HoT story for the free exotic box (has viper stats as selection) on every alt until I had a full set. Cost almost no gold except the reforge stuff and allowed me to save back for ascended. Wasn’t the most direct route to gear a character but it was the most cost effective.

@Haleydawn.3764 said:

@"ImTasty.2163" said:Honestly I feel a lot of that could be resolved with just decreasing the amount of flax required. If you craft vipers, or any HoT stat, you need 200 flax for just one piece of armor or weapon. So to craft a full set of 6 armor you need 1200 flax seeds just for that.

Because you still need to make the exotic insignia for each ascended insignia.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Yassith%27s_Viper%27s_Insignia

@Odinens.5920 said:

@Haleydawn.3764 said:

@"ImTasty.2163" said:Honestly I feel a lot of that could be resolved with just decreasing the amount of flax required. If you craft vipers, or any HoT stat, you need 200 flax for just one piece of armor or weapon. So to craft a full set of 6 armor you need 1200 flax seeds just for that.

Crafting the insignia doesn’t require flax, which the main argument was about. So if flax and the cost of crafting is the main problem, there’s Reward tracks (that I indeed explained) which offer Viper Exotics without needing to craft anything, or as someone pointed out, Bitter Harvest awards a Viper gear box.

Crafting the insignia doesn’t require flax, which the main argument was about. So if flax and the cost of crafting is the main problem, there’s Reward tracks (that I indeed explained) which offer Viper Exotics without needing to craft anything, or as someone pointed out, Bitter Harvest awards a Viper gear box.

Gotcha. Misunderstood. Didn't realize the discussion was "flax-specific." Thought OP was talking exotics in general.