Ascended Items should be stat-swappable

As the title says. Legendary quality should be about the skins, the status of it, the particle effects, all the things people always end up paying to have anyways. Having ascended items be quickly stat-swappable (I.E. Not having to toss each piece and some gold into the MF just to try out a build idea, and if it doesn't work out have to do it again to go back to the 'meta') would bring in a lot more build diversity and remove the major punishment involved in running off-meta things. Ascended quality gear is expensive or grindy to get for a relatively minor stat increase, but making it able to select your stats on the fly would really add a lot to the game. I would even gladly trade the account-binding nature of ascended items and put it back to soulbound, if only they would give us the ability to actually play around with builds again. It was a staple in GW1, and the functionality to select stats is already in the game, it would just need to be expanded to encompass ascended weapons and not just the ridiculously expensive legendaries.

Legendaries aren't legendary just for the skins and status. That stat swapping is part of that.There's 3 ways to get legendary armor you should probably just get a set.

I thing that would be bad idea, as it would affect game's economy, material prices and what not...Getting ascended gear is not hard atm, nor is it expensive, but it is time-gated (whether you craft it, or go thry PvP/WvW, it takes couple of weeks for entire set)

Once you have complete set(s), swapping stats with MF is simple enough. Ofc before stat swapping trying out the idea behind the build - maybe by playing in exotics - is probably a good idea. :)

@Ceit.7619 said:As the title says. Legendary quality should be about the skins, the status of it, the particle effects, all the things people always end up paying to have anyways. Having ascended items be quickly stat-swappable (I.E. Not having to toss each piece and some gold into the MF just to try out a build idea, and if it doesn't work out have to do it again to go back to the 'meta') would bring in a lot more build diversity and remove the major punishment involved in running off-meta things. Ascended quality gear is expensive or grindy to get for a relatively minor stat increase, but making it able to select your stats on the fly would really add a lot to the game. I would even gladly trade the account-binding nature of ascended items and put it back to soulbound, if only they would give us the ability to actually play around with builds again. It was a staple in GW1, and the functionality to select stats is already in the game, it would just need to be expanded to encompass ascended weapons and not just the ridiculously expensive legendaries.

it would take away from the game, 1 ascended set, boom your done, boring plus it devalues the only real functional bonus you get from legendary. This would also decimate the market, another negative for everyone.

Changing your stats is so damn cheap, it's like 10g each set unless you have to craft the special stat combination yourself first.

@Ceit.7619 said:As the title says. Legendary quality should be about the skins, the status of it, the particle effects, all the things people always end up paying to have anyways. Having ascended items be quickly stat-swappable (I.E. Not having to toss each piece and some gold into the MF just to try out a build idea, and if it doesn't work out have to do it again to go back to the 'meta') would bring in a lot more build diversity and remove the major punishment involved in running off-meta things. Ascended quality gear is expensive or grindy to get for a relatively minor stat increase, but making it able to select your stats on the fly would really add a lot to the game. I would even gladly trade the account-binding nature of ascended items and put it back to soulbound, if only they would give us the ability to actually play around with builds again. It was a staple in GW1, and the functionality to select stats is already in the game, it would just need to be expanded to encompass ascended weapons and not just the ridiculously expensive legendaries.

Legendary armor in pvp and wvw are not about skins (they have no unique skins). Theyre about the QoL of free stat-and runeswapping. In that regard, ascended shouldnt have the same treatment. Legendary armor costs a LOT more gold to make. Statswapping a full ascended set costs a minor amount of gold (exceptions minstrel and trailblazer). You want that statswapping feature? Make legendary armor. Ascended is cheap enough as it is.

The cost to swap stats on ascended pieces isn't high, and getting a set isn't grindy, getting legendaries is what's grindy and time consuming. As long as you earn a little bit of gold each day you can essentially buy a ascended full set in 2-4 weeks depending on what you make, you just need to make sure you leveled a crafting profession.

Even if the cost to stat swap was removed, it isn't going to magically increase build diversity. There are games with no cost associated with stat swapping and it changed nothing. Also, look at Spvp where you don't have to worry about gear or even leveling up, yet there's no diversity there. Just be honest and say you can't be bothered to take the time to either WvW, R-pvp, or raid for extended periods to get a legendary armor set.

While I agree ascended should be able to switch stats without the need of a mystic forge, I also think its should not be as fast an easy as with legendary gear.

I ideally, we would have:

• The ability to unlock stats and upgrades for the account.
• Then each character would learn those in the training panel by spending +1 of that upgrade and the surplus hero points we never use so they are not there hanging and so each character can have its progress. But at the same time, there would have to be trainer NPCs that can be paid some coin and/or spirit shards to quickly unlock hero points in pve like in the WvW notarizer, for those who do not fancy having to do all hero points with every character.
• Then we'd be able to switch the stats of level 80 exotic and ascended gear by spending some resource that has lost value to make it valuable again. For example, upgrades, dark matter and dark energy would become salvageable, and the materials would be used both in the process to unlock upgrades and stats, and to pay to switch. This way all these upgrades and exotic gear that are becoming too cheap would have more use again. Too many upgrades are now under 2s, and some exotics are going under 30s.
• A template system to quickly load stats and upgrades for skills, traits, gear, stats and upgrades. We would by able to load parts of any template like just the traits or just the weapons by unchecking checkboxes in the load panel, and there would be a confirmation dialog and a warning when we are trying to load a template with stats and upgrades we haven't unlocked yet, or gear we do not carry. The panel would also show the cost to load a template if there's any cost.
  With a template system, legendary gearwould also be able to use the same system to switch stats and upgrades faster, without having to right click the gear. But for legendary gear it would be free of cost, and all stat from owned content and all core upgrades would be available without having to unlock them.

To put it simply:

• Unlock
• Train
• Switch.

The key to make the system work is the cost of the unlocks and the cost to switch. They both need to consume items, or people would just unlock omnce and stop consuming them.So any decent template system would not just load gear already in your inventory, it would switch the stats and upgrades equipped, but it would have costs that maintain healthy item sinks.

For example, to unlock the Sigil of Force for the account, we would need 250 of a material salvaged from minor runes and sigils, 100 of a material salvaged from major runes and sigils, and 50 of a material salvaged from superior runes and sigils, + something that will slow down the process by requiring spirit shards and some other things, like a Lesser Vision crystal. With those 4 thinds you'd craft a "Blank Ascended Upgrade", then you'd have to put that in the mystic forge with enough of the corresponding upgrdes you want to unlock, like 100 Minor Sigils of Force, 25 Rare sigils of force, and 10 superior sigils of Force. Then with those 4 stacks you craft an Eternal Sigil of Force, use it, and it gets unlocked for the account. This would only have to be done once per upgrade for the entire account.(For those upgrades that only have a superior version, something else would be used as wildcard in place of the minor and rare, like fine material that have gotten too cheap like fossils, thorns and eyes of kormir)

Once unlocked, each character that wants to learn to apply sigils of force to their gear would have to get 1 Superior sigil of force, go to the training panel, and after the lists of specializations there would be two new entries: One for stats, one for upgrades, with a list of all possible ones, and the ones unlocked for the account highlighted. Spend hero points and that superior sigil to learn the sigil. This way expensive sigils keep being used so they retain value.

Once the character has trained the sigil they want to apply, they just need to salvage any minor, major and superior upgrades, and those materials would be used to pay to switch. This and the cost to craft the unlockers guarantees the less valuable upgrades gain value as they can always be salvaged to fuel the system.You would go to the hero panel, click the "Equipment" panel, click the item you want to modify, and after any upgrades in your inventory you would see all unlocked upgrades the character has trained, and you would click them like you can click upgrades in your inventory to add them to gear.What if I want to add a superior and a rare version of a sigil to the same weapon? Trying to apply the same upgrade twice to the same weapon would attempt to make the second a different tier.

Since the upgrades applied this way would obviously not be salvageable, to prevent accidental salvaging the color of the names of the upgrades in the description would be different, maybe also the colors of the icon could be shifted or inverted.

Then something similar could be done with stats. First a process to unlock the stats for the account, then each character trains those stats by paying with a berserker insignia or inscription and some hero points, in the training panel. Then we salvage a Glob of Dark matter, and the resulting material is used to pay to switch, thus making all those worthless exotics worth salvaging to fuel the system, and they would stop losing value since they get salvaged instead sold.

No, I want legendary to have something more than ascended than just skin so, to me, they're fine.

Completely disagree. This change will kill the materials market whatever is left (after Istan almost destroyed it).

@GwAddict.9746 said:Completely disagree. This change will kill the materials market whatever is left (after Istan almost destroyed it).

Same, and as others have said completely removes the one big thing that legends have going for them.

@Voltekka.2375 said:

@Ceit.7619 said:As the title says. Legendary quality should be about the skins, the status of it, the particle effects, all the things people always end up paying to have anyways. Having ascended items be quickly stat-swappable (I.E. Not having to toss each piece and some gold into the MF just to try out a build idea, and if it doesn't work out have to do it again to go back to the 'meta') would bring in a lot more build diversity and remove the major punishment involved in running off-meta things. Ascended quality gear is expensive or grindy to get for a relatively minor stat increase, but making it able to select your stats on the fly would really add a lot to the game. I would even gladly trade the account-binding nature of ascended items and put it back to soulbound, if only they would give us the ability to actually play around with builds again. It was a staple in GW1, and the functionality to select stats is already in the game, it would just need to be expanded to encompass ascended weapons and not just the ridiculously expensive legendaries.

I would have to disagree in terms of the skin though as I think the Mistforged Triumphant armor is really the Legendary Skin for the game mode. Do you need it in order to obtain Legendary status, no, but the Armor change and the particle effect on the chest is pretty unique and also very expensive and time consuming.

Nope.As others said, they will devalue legendary to just a skin plus you have already the ability to swap stats on asc already.Not mentioning that if you re a fractal daily runner(t4), you ll already swimming on ascended gear and be able to have some sets per alt...

@Ceit.7619 said:Ascended Items should be stat-swappable

Weapons and armor are, in the Mystic Forge. However, the system is inconsistent, which needs to be fixed:

• make trinkets stat-swappable in the MF as well
• make aquatic headgear stat-swappable in the MF as well (!)
• finally make it possible to swap sigils in legendary weapons (!)

@Tyson.5160 said:

@Voltekka.2375 said:

@Ceit.7619 said:As the title says. Legendary quality should be about the skins, the status of it, the particle effects, all the things people always end up paying to have anyways. Having ascended items be quickly stat-swappable (I.E. Not having to toss each piece and some gold into the MF just to try out a build idea, and if it doesn't work out have to do it again to go back to the 'meta') would bring in a lot more build diversity and remove the major punishment involved in running off-meta things. Ascended quality gear is expensive or grindy to get for a relatively minor stat increase, but making it able to select your stats on the fly would really add a lot to the game. I would even gladly trade the account-binding nature of ascended items and put it back to soulbound, if only they would give us the ability to actually play around with builds again. It was a staple in GW1, and the functionality to select stats is already in the game, it would just need to be expanded to encompass ascended weapons and not just the ridiculously expensive legendaries.

Buddy, it is not a matter of personal belief. Wvw has NO legendary skin. The 2k skin is obtainable by ANYONE with that rank and sufficient tickets. Whether you agree or not has nothing to do with a legendary, exclusive skin. Envoy armor is the only legendary armor skin in the game. Is the Mark Y golem backpack legendary because it moves? No, it is not. Close, but not really.

@Voltekka.2375 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:

@Voltekka.2375 said:

@Ceit.7619 said:As the title says. Legendary quality should be about the skins, the status of it, the particle effects, all the things people always end up paying to have anyways. Having ascended items be quickly stat-swappable (I.E. Not having to toss each piece and some gold into the MF just to try out a build idea, and if it doesn't work out have to do it again to go back to the 'meta') would bring in a lot more build diversity and remove the major punishment involved in running off-meta things. Ascended quality gear is expensive or grindy to get for a relatively minor stat increase, but making it able to select your stats on the fly would really add a lot to the game. I would even gladly trade the account-binding nature of ascended items and put it back to soulbound, if only they would give us the ability to actually play around with builds again. It was a staple in GW1, and the functionality to select stats is already in the game, it would just need to be expanded to encompass ascended weapons and not just the ridiculously expensive legendaries.

No I realize that there is really only one Legendary Skin, however I think the Mistforged Triumphant Armor is the equivalent to it for the WvW. Most people don’t realize the amount of work it takes to obtain just the skins and that’s before upgrading them to Legendary status. The fact that if you want full Mistforged Heavy for example means you have to get all the exotic Triumphant pieces through the reward track, craft the ascended Triumphant Hero with the crafting marks, be at rank 2000 and then craft the pieces if you have acquired enough tickets.

@"Tyson.5160" said:

No I realize that there is really only one Legendary Skin, however I think the Mistforged Triumphant Armor is the equivalent to it for the WvW. Most people don’t realize the amount of work it takes to obtain just the skins and that’s before upgrading them to Legendary status. The fact that if you want full Mistforged Heavy for example means you have to get all the exotic Triumphant pieces through the reward track, craft the ascended Triumphant Hero with the crafting marks, be at rank 2000 and then craft the pieces if you have acquired enough tickets.

Oof I hope you haven't gone through that process already because that's not at all what you have to do. To get the Mistforged armor you ONLY have to have the skins unlocked which you can get through buying the exotic versions. You don't have to craft any ascended before unlocking the ascended Mistforged.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Triumphant_Hero%27s_armor

You only need the SKIN of this to get the Mistforged armor. The ascended version is basically if you don't have the ranks or you don't care about the skin but still want ascended/legendary.

Yeah but don’t you need to unlock tier 2 to get tier 3 or is the wiki incorrect? I couldn’t check because my rank isn’t at 2000 yet.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mistforged_Triumphant_Hero%27s_armor.

Oh and I know that the Triumphant Hero armor can be upgraded to Legendary.

@meowtier.1364 said:

@"Tyson.5160" said:

No I realize that there is really only one Legendary Skin, however I think the Mistforged Triumphant Armor is the equivalent to it for the WvW. Most people don’t realize the amount of work it takes to obtain just the skins and that’s before upgrading them to Legendary status. The fact that if you want full Mistforged Heavy for example means you have to get all the exotic Triumphant pieces through the reward track, craft the ascended Triumphant Hero with the crafting marks, be at rank 2000 and then craft the pieces if you have acquired enough tickets.

Oof I hope you haven't gone through that process already because that's not at all what you have to do. To get the Mistforged armor you ONLY have to have the skins unlocked which you can get through buying the exotic versions. You don't have to craft any ascended before unlocking the ascended Mistforged.

Oh I gotcha, you can purchase the exotic for tickets in Tier 2, so it’s the same minus the crafting marks then.

@"Tyson.5160" said:Yeah but don’t you need to unlock tier 2 to get tier 3 or is the wiki incorrect? I couldn’t check because my rank isn’t at 2000 yet.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mistforged_Triumphant_Hero%27s_armor.

Oh and I know that the Triumphant Hero armor can be upgraded to Legendary.

You need the SKIN of T2 (Triumphant Hero) to get T3 (Mistforged Triumphant Hero) which you can unlock through the exotic version of T2.I'm working on my second set of WvW legendary armor and the only time I've bought ascended T2 was for the pieces that I didn't want the Mistforged skins of

@meowtier.1364 said:

@"Tyson.5160" said:Yeah but don’t you need to unlock tier 2 to get tier 3 or is the wiki incorrect? I couldn’t check because my rank isn’t at 2000 yet.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mistforged_Triumphant_Hero%27s_armor

.

Oh and I know that the Triumphant Hero armor can be upgraded to Legendary.

Yeah didn’t realize that tier 2 exotic could be purchased with tickets. Thanks!

No NoNoNo NoNoNo NoNo

@Voltekka.2375 said:

Legendary armor in pvp and wvw are not about skins (they have no unique skins). Theyre about the QoL of free stat-and runeswapping. In that regard, ascended shouldnt have the same treatment. Legendary armor costs a LOT more gold to make. Statswapping a full ascended set costs a minor amount of gold (exceptions minstrel and trailblazer). You want that statswapping feature? Make legendary armor. Ascended is cheap enough as it is.

First off, pvp has literally nothing to do with QoL stat or rune swapping. Pvp lobby gets that for free because at least in that game mode, the devs understand that build freedom makes a difference and they don't want pvp people being forced to grind for gold in order to play the game mode of their choice. Making legendary armor on it's own wouldn't even be enough to have true freedom either, which is why most people I know who have legendary armor barely ever switch it around. You would need a legendary weapon for every weapon your individual class knows, and the level of grind that people are suggesting is acceptable just so you can easily play OFF META builds is ridiculous. Legendary things have no real value beyond the status and the skin. The stat swapping feature is just a slap in the face, but it seems more people like the punishment of that.

I think it's just insane that people really think having freedom to play different builds on any class in an easy matter should involve at least 3 sets of legendary armor, a legendary backpiece, 4 legendary trinkets (3 of which don't exist) and a bunch of legendary weapons. All for the 'convenience' of being able to play your class as you imagine a build to be without tossing significant amounts of gold down the toilet.

At one point, Legendary items were solely about the skins. That was not enough for the people who felt that the effort/expense in getting one should offer something more. ANet gave them stat switch.

People also complained that Ascended was alt character and build experimentation unfriendly. So, ANet made them account bound and provided a means to change stats on demand with a little effort and expense. That's enough of a concession as far as I'm concerned. Ascended was put in to be a longer-term goal for people who wanted that type of play. If the OP wants to experiment, let him try his new builds with Exotics.

@IndigoSundown.5419 said:At one point, Legendary items were solely about the skins. That was not enough for the people who felt that the effort/expense in getting one should offer something more. ANet gave them stat switch.

People also complained that Ascended was alt character and build experimentation unfriendly. So, ANet made them account bound and provided a means to change stats on demand with a little effort and expense. That's enough of a concession as far as I'm concerned. Ascended was put in to be a longer-term goal for people who wanted that type of play. If the OP wants to experiment, let him try his new builds with Exotics.

I suppose I'm just of the strange opinion that people should be able to freely try out different builds without incurring tedious, ridiculous expenses and possessing 3 sets of armor per character.