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The problem with stats runes and sigils bound to equipment


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Some gw2 rant without hoping to make any difference.

Tldr: The point I wanted to make with this post is that being able to experiment with different builds should be a basic feature of a MMO. Because builds are useless with wrong stats, people can't experiment properly. Instead you have to follow meta builds to not waste money on equipment which is not ideal.

Once stats, runes and sigils are applied to equipment it is very hard / expensive to change without having legendary equipment. This leads to almost everybody playing the exact meta build in raids or fractals because the have been proven to work and discourage players to try out new things because it's so expensive.

Also every raider or fractal player is running around in openworld with their full berserker raid / fractal gear and getting 1 shotted all the time because it's to much of an effort to get a completely new set of gear for open world gameplay.

Now if you want try something off meta for raids/endgame fractals or a different build for open world you have get new gear, which requires time and money and depending on the stat of the gear (viper, minstrel, diviner, harrier) a lot of time. And after you get it, it could turn out it's totally crap. What if trailblazer stats doesn't turn out as good in openworld as you have expected and you want to try out celestial? Well have fun grinding a new set of equipment. And the trailblazer's is new blocking space inside your inventory for years because you don't want to delete it.

Fractals:This becomes even more extreme in T4/CM fractals. As you have the hfb, alacren backline for pug meta.You want to try out a different rune for fractals?Option 1: Get new ascended armor for 200+ gold just for that one tryout run.Option 2: Override your current 6x5g Rune of Scholar each time you want to try new runes.Option 3: Buy 6x upgrade extractor and then 6 again if you want to go back to your meta runes.Other constelations like a chrono-druid backline and more more are perfectly viable but one of the main reasons it is not played is because you have to spend so much gold before being even able to play a different build.

You see where I'm going. Being able to customize your character and try out different combat styles is something you want to easily do in every MMO or RPG but it's somehow so hard in gw2. It's like the game telling you to play that meta and punishes you for wanting to try out new things. Only if you spent thousands of hours grinding your complete set of legendary equipment and having all legendary weapons you are allowed to experiment with stat combinations. I think the upcoming legendary armory just further escalates this problem.

In gw1 the strength of your skills are dependent on your attribute points which could be changed inside every city. Rune did not have such a big impact. Even so it was fairly easy to have different head pieces each with a different +3 rune.In gw2 the strength of your skills are dependent on your equipment stats which is ok only if it woudn't be so hard to change them.

Since gw2 has already been out for so long I doubt any change is coming. I have also read somewhere that devs are aware they don't like the current infusion system but still no change after so many years. Still some suggestions from me:Opt 1: Easiest but maybe not best - Make all ascended equipment always stat selectable just like legendaries.Opt 2: Make ascended stat selectable but one have to unlock the stats. E.g. doing some achievements to onlock viper stats?Opt 3: Same as Opt 2 but add Gem Store item to unlock all Stats?Opt 4: End of Dragon buyers get stat selection?

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I appreciate that there is a cost to the flexibility of changing gearing and stats. I do not think this is a prohibitive cost however. If you are running T3/T4 fractals you can make how much gold per day?

Would I like it cheaper or easier to access, sure thing but, your suggestion negates the legendary grind. If I don’t need legendary to change stats why would I ever invest in it?

A full set of legendary armor is not that hard to attain if you are happy to grind WvW which also throws a lot of other gear at you along the way. If you are planning on playing this game in a year you can easily grind out a legendary set in that time, likely much less.

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I usually do CMs+T4 which gives about 20 gold plus tons of mats but it's not about that.

The point I wanted to make with this post is that being able to experiment with different builds should be a basic feature of a MMO. Because builds are useless with wrong stats, people can't experiment. Instead you have to follow meta builds to not waste money on equipment which is not ideal.

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@kharmin.7683 said:Stat swapping, outside of legendary, is a gold sink. I think that's by design. I don't see the pressing need to alter it.

The result is that players don't swap unless their the meta build is suggesting a different stat.

The ability to tryout otherwise never used stats or weird stat combinations or sigils is withheld for players with legendary equipment.

There is this cool wintersday sigil which launches snowballs on foes. Who wants to try that out if you have to buy a new 5g sigil of force or 9g sigil of malice after throwing some snowballs?

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Honestly scholar rune + sigil of force has been meta in fractals forever, which is the only place that ascended armor is necessary. Sigil of Impact used to be only 10% vs stunned/ controlled foes rather than 3% always and an added 7% vs CCed foes.

If you want a shakeup then scholar rune would need to be detuned a bit (maybe drop to 3% damage bonus similar to sigils). 225 ferocity = 15% crit damage if you have 100% crit chance , plus the additional 5% if you have close to full health (>90%).Other contenders outside of scholar rune include eagle runes (10% damage modifier and the same 225 ferocity , but with 175 precision instead of power) and thief runes which are used for precision (10% damage multiplier as well). Rune of the Ogre has a 4% damage mod and 100 ferocity (~6.7% crit damage) but the rock dog summoned is impractical most of the time. There's golemancer runes with +300 ferocity bonus and that's the only thing with a higher ferocity bonus, keeping in mind you give up power to gain that bonus so it isn't viable most of the time.

Numerically if you punch a typical fractal build such as Banner BS through discretize optimizer with food/utility , assuming the defaults (sigil of force , sigil of impact and no spotter because soulbeasts run marksmanship in fractals):

! Thief = 4615 , with 10% flanking bonus presumably! Scholar with >90% bonus = 4615! Eagle = 4613 , the 10% damage bonus only applies vs <50% health targets so it's less useful for boss fights and raid/strike scenarios! Spellbreaker = 4552 , which isn't great when there's No Pain No Gain or Vengeance instabilities! Flame Legion = 4456 , keeping in mind you need a guardian to output burning for you if you're on a power build generally! Ogre = 4438! Scholar sans 90% health bonus= 4395! Strength = 4372 , generally would only be running on Tactics warriors! Pack = 4277

For merged soulbeast

! Scholar with >90% bonus = 3452! Eagle = 3422 , the 10% damage bonus only applies vs <50% health targets so it's less useful for boss fights and raid/strike scenarios! Spellbreaker = 3416 , keeping in mind you have no boon rip yourself! Thief = 3401 , with 10% flanking bonus presumably! Flame Legion = 3334 , keeping in mind you need a guardian to output burning for you if you're on a power build generally! Ogre = 3320! Scholar sans 90% bonus = 3288! Strength = 3272! Pack = 3212

For power DH (not sure why you would run this over condi FB most of the time)

! Scholar with >90% bonus = 3460! Eagle = 3382 , the 10% damage bonus only applies vs <50% health targets so it's less useful for boss fights and raid/strike scenarios! Spellbreaker = 3377 (you generally would not use this on a DH)! Thief = 3332 , with 10% flanking bonus presumably! Flame Legion = 3312! Ogre = 3312! Scholar sans 90% bonus = 3295! Strength = 3250! Pack = 3156

On snowcrows gear optimizer it's even more apparent in FOTM mode because if you turn off spotter it spits out Scholar Runes straight down for warriors, power DH, soulbeasts, power chrono, power tempest & weaver , power holo, daredevil, reapers , and the lesser used power herald.

Runes tend to be the most boring part of power builds. You can look at builds sites and almost always it's Scholar Rune unless you can't reasonably hit crit cap of 100% crit chance.

I have to disagree with people getting 1 shotted in openworld in berserker gear. You can swap trinkets or change a build slightly if it's that much of a problem. In addition there's a mystic forge recipe to swap stats on ascended gear so stat select isn't necessarily a requirement for power builds. The only amazingly expensive stat right now is Trailblazer. Diviner requires time investment for the serpentite ; harrier ascended recipes are expensive so mystic forge tends to be cheaper. Minstrel used to be more pricey but now that it has fell out of favor for PVE , WVW players can have an easier time with obtaining it.

Generally it has been much more stressful for WvW players by the way, which is why I made legendary armor. Durability runes , leadership runes, antitoxin, monk runes, etc all have fallen in and out of favor.

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@namelesswc.9217 said:

The point I wanted to make with this post is that being able to experiment with different builds should be a basic feature of a MMO. Because builds are useless with wrong stats, people can't experiment. Instead you have to follow meta builds to not waste money on equipment which is not ideal.

Why should it be a basic feature? Perhaps I am missing something but I don’t recall having free stat swaps in other MMO I played.

I appreciate your desire to theory crafting and wanting easier access to that but I would contend that most players don’t care. Many players use meta builds because understanding the stats and mechanics of GW2 is fairly different from other games and there are so many unique variables from other games.

Likewise I doubt most players farming legendaries are doing it to theory craft, but rather to have flexibility to switch between meta builds in different game types.

Overall, yes, it would be lovely to have access to stat swapping more readily. Your suggested implementations however devalue existing legendaries to satisfy your wants. In your proposed idea here, where do legendaries fit in? Do they get cost reduced as well? What would be the draw to getting legendary armor?

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@namelesswc.9217 said:

@kharmin.7683 said:Stat swapping, outside of legendary, is a gold sink. I think that's by design. I don't see the pressing need to alter it.

The result is that players don't swap unless their the meta build is suggesting a different stat.This doesn't prevent them. Discourages, perhaps, but not prevent.The ability to tryout otherwise never used stats or weird stat combinations or sigils is withheld for players with legendary equipment.Isn't that where the META builds come from anyway? Players with legendary equipment?There is this cool wintersday sigil which launches snowballs on foes. Who wants to try that out if you have to buy a new 5g sigil of force or 9g sigil of malice after throwing some snowballs?So, either pony up the gold or craft legendary equipment.

As I said, I find this to be a gold sink for the game and probably intended to be so. Why put in the playing time/effort/mats/gold for legendary equipment if one can stat-swap with everything else.

Just my take on it.

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@namelesswc.9217 said:I usually do CMs+T4 which gives about 20 gold plus tons of mats but it's not about that.

The point I wanted to make with this post is that being able to experiment with different builds should be a basic feature of a MMO. Because builds are useless with wrong stats, people can't experiment. Instead you have to follow meta builds to not waste money on equipment which is not ideal.

There is a wealth of information out there about how to make choices without having to re-discover what's good or not. That's especially true if you want to just use meta. In addition, you might not be aware but you don't have to follow meta builds because the game isn't designed so that you need to use meta builds to be successful.

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Let's see...

https://gw2efficiency.com/crafting/calculator/a~0!b~1!c~0!d~6-73227

This is how much it costs to convert your entire ascended armor set to one of the pricier stat combinations. About 40 gold.This is basically 2 dailies of running T3 or T4 fractals.

https://gw2efficiency.com/crafting/calculator/a~0!b~1!c~0!d~4-72875

If you have 4 weapons, it's another 20 gold to change stats on them. One day of T3/T4 fractals.

Then you have Ascended stat selectable stuff like Bloodstone backpack, ring and amulet which can be reset for unbound magic. That's 0 gold spent. Other ascended trinkets can be had for 0 gold as well because of the LW3 stat selectable stuff so i'm not going to count them as gold expense when switching stats, you can just farm the currencies and get another set, it just takes time.

That leaves Runes and infusions to deal with. Let's say, you spend another 30 gold on removing all the infusions (you won't, but whatever). Again, one day of running T3/T4 dailies.

That then leaves runes and sigils. If you need the most expensive runes like idk, Tormenting or whatever, that's another 40 gold for runes, and let's say 10 gold for 4 sigils. Sigils aren't that pricey. Another 3 days of fractals.

Then let's add 10 gold "expenses" like idk, whatever you'd need to get stuff while farming, teleporting around the map, etc.

Attuning and infusing the new rings will also cost, idk, 50 gold, 3 days of fractals.

Total estimate to change stats with kind of overblown estimates in worst case scenario is then around 200 gold or about 2 weeks of running T4 dailies, plus LW3 farming.

I admit, that looks scary, but this is the worst case scenario, all the infusions, all the most expensive stuff bought from TP using NONE of your materials (which will never be the case). But it's still just 2 weeks of 2 hour session gameplay per day... If you use your materials, which you'll always have from salvaging and just playing the game the cost becomes way cheaper. Especially if you intend to gather them instead of buying.It's not really that scary when you look at it that way.

The "good" thing depending on how you look at it is then - you have 2 weeks time to try out your new build or whatever...

But here's the thing.. This is the incentive for players to work towards legendary items. Instead of wasting 200 gold every 2 weeks on stat changes for you to test, you could save it instead, and do the legendary collections and have the ending legendary be that much cheaper once you eventually get it. After that, after even 1 legendary, then 2, then 3, it becomes exponentially cheaper to change the stats on the remaining items should you wish so.

For example. I have 2 legendary armors right now. Armor pieces, not sets.

That's 2 less infusion extractors, 2 less superior runes, 2 less intricate insignias to deal with.

Third armor will reduce that cost even less, and so on, and so on.Yes, legendary is expensive, but not when you look at how much you save in the long run.

So all in all, changing stats is not really THAT big of a deal. It just prevents you from making meme builds that will get you kicked out of fractals and being unable to progress towards your "next stat change" or whatever.

So i think the system is made like that to enable players stat changing to keep up with the meta as it changes, while nudging you in the direction of making legendaries if you want your stats changed so often.

That being said, i know people who never changed their stats once they got what they wanted. And indeed the game is designed that way kind of... So that it discourages stat mixing mostly, and so that when the community finds the most useful stats, it's good for basically ever...

EDIT: Just as a side note - raiders getting one shotted in open world on berserker's comment is a bit too much. There's nothing wrong with berserker's in open world. If it works in harder content like raids and fractals, it works in others as well. There's also TONS of exotic equipment that's free (WvW armor etc), and stat selectable for you to play with. You're not meant to test builds on ascended anyway. If you find something that works on exotic without stat infusions and supbar cheap runes, it'll work on ascended with stat infusions and good runes and sigils.

Want to test builds? Get exotic stuff first.

On my open world character, i'm running full exotic, and changed my build twice now for 0 gold, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it, deals damage, ok survivability on full Viper's - you have dodges, mobs have half an hour tells and glowing circles where they'll strike - exotic is just fine. Plus, from what i can tell, Raids don't require ascended so to do, so you can experiment with builds all you want.

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It's not about creating new meta builds by being able to stats nor is it about min maxing your crit to 100%.

Why should it be a basic feature? Perhaps I am missing something but I don’t recall having free stat swaps in other MMO I played.I'm comparing it to gw1 since thats the other mmo I have played the most. Attributes points would be the equivalent to stats in gw1 since that's what mainly determined how effective your skill was. And they can be adjusted in cities all the time if I recall correctly.

Gw2's old trait system didn't used to my adjustable too. You had to pay money to reset it until they changed it. With the new system trait changing is free but choosing a heal trait over a damage trait is useless if you don't switch to healing gear too.

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The bottomline here is that it's going to cost you gold to experiment ...

whether that's the cost of legendary gear ... or the cost of purchasing a whole slew of armors/weapons with different traits. I can't believe that's not by accident either.

The question is HOW much you are willing to pay.

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@Veprovina.4876 said:Total estimate to change stats with kind of overblown estimates in worst case scenario is then around 200 gold or about 2 weeks of running T4 dailies, plus LW3 farming.

So about 200g or 2 weeks just to try out something different for a run to have some fun and then another 200g or 2 weeks to get your old build back. What if you notice in the middle of the run that it doesn't work out as planned and that other stat with more toughness is better? 2 Weeks more of t4 dailies? Someone who only plays on weekends might want to do that too?

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@Obtena.7952 said:In addition, you might not be aware but you don't have to follow meta builds because the game isn't designed so that you need to use meta builds to be successful.

If you decide against meta builds and want to use your own builds shoudn't you be able to test them? You can theorycraft about your build as much as you want but at the end you want to play your build to see if it works. If not you might adjust it and test it again. Thats exactly what you can do in gw2 pvp but not in pve without paying gold for every slight amount of change.

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@namelesswc.9217 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:In addition, you might not be aware but you don't have to follow meta builds because the game isn't designed so that you need to use meta builds to be successful.

If you decide against meta builds and want to use your own builds shoudn't you be able to test them?

Yup, and there is a cost to that. How FAR you are willing to test your builds determines the cost. I mean, what do you think you have to adjust so finely in PVE if you aren't targeting some optimal build?

Frankly, I think you are delving way to deep into your investigations if you are losing your shirt on testing. I mean, I've done this ... and the conclusion is that you should be more concerned about understanding what you want a build to do BEFORE you build it. The tools are already there to do that.

The question I have is what kind of changes you are making and how you are deciding to make changes that FORCES you do make the build and test it in game ... because almost everything you need can already be done with online build calculators.

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@Obtena.7952 said:Frankly, I think you are delving way to deep into your investigations if you are losing your shirt on testing. I mean, I've done this ... and the conclusion is that you should be more concerned about understanding what you want a build to do BEFORE you build it. The tools are already there to do that.

Done that too. Now my mesmer has 5 armors. diviner's and minstrel's are just using up space because they are never used but I still want trailblazers to have some fun as condi chrono tank and then never do it again.

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@Obtena.7952 said:The question I have is what kind of changes you are making and how you are deciding to make changes that FORCES you do make the build and test it in game ... because almost everything you need can already be done with online build calculators.

I don't have any exact build in mind. All I want to say gw2 would be much more fun if you have the freedom to play different builds without weeks of farming in between. In gw1 a friend could just sent you a build from his build storage which has infinite storage by default btw and tell you: hey try this out its fun.

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@namelesswc.9217 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:The question I have is what kind of changes you are making and how you are deciding to make changes that FORCES you do make the build and test it in game ... because almost everything you need can already be done with online build calculators.

I don't have any exact build in mind.

That's your problem right there. I mean, what build are you actually making and trying out if you don't have an idea of what you want it to do? You're approach is what is causing you the excessive costs.

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@kharmin.7683 said:But you can. With Legendary gear.

Yeah not worth the time for me. also planning to only play once a week in the future.

But even if I had every legendary in the game I need 4 friends to have them too. Had this idea of 4 eles and 1 mesmer for fractal cms. The mesmer giving heal, quick, alac, fury and blocks to the team and eles stacking might. If stat change would be free we might find out if it works otherwise probably not.

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@namelesswc.9217 said:It's not about creating new meta builds by being able to stats nor is it about min maxing your crit to 100%.

Why should it be a basic feature? Perhaps I am missing something but I don’t recall having free stat swaps in other MMO I played.I'm comparing it to gw1 since thats the other mmo I have played the most. Attributes points would be the equivalent to stats in gw1 since that's what mainly determined how effective your skill was. And they can be adjusted in cities all the time if I recall correctly.

Gw2's old trait system didn't used to my adjustable too. You had to pay money to reset it until they changed it. With the new system trait changing is free but choosing a heal trait over a damage trait is useless if you don't switch to healing gear too.

You cant compare gw1 and gw2 they arent the same genre.A co op rpg and a a massive multiplaye online rpg is not the same

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@namelesswc.9217 said:

@kharmin.7683 said:But you can. With Legendary gear.

Yeah not worth the time for me. also planning to only play once a week in the future.

I really don't see what the purpose of your investigations are, especially considering how little you plan to play. It seems to me someone that plays so little wouldn't even know what they are looking at to begin with.

Maybe a better approach for you would be to ask for build suggestions based on some criteria you have and what you want to do. If you are willing to accept a build from a friend in GW1 from their library because 'fun' ... then it shouldn't be a problem to do the same here in GW2 without having to pay all this gold to investigate things.

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