Dear Anet: Condi gear prices are out of control

[Bladezephyr.5714]

I just did the math on typical "top shelf" exotic power gear (zerker & scholar runes) vs. condi (viper's & torment runes).  I chose those because they're each the gear required/expected for the highest damage specs in the game, for power and condi, give or take specific specs' idiosyncrasies and players' play styles.  This is the gear, typically, you buy, or are recommended to buy, to do "good" DPS for your spec.  I used medium gear, since that's what I'm currently focused on gearing, and included a full set of armor, trinkets, and runes (x7) for both.  I used the sell price since it was the fastest/easiest, and while the buy price will be lower, the difference is still representative.

 

It will come as no surprise to players who've geared a condi/torment build what the results are.  Runes of tormenting are currently selling for over 14g each, which by themselves is more expensive than the entire power kit by almost a factor of two.  The total price for zerker gear was 56g 7s 39cp, whereas the viper's gear is 261g 5s 64cp, almost FIVE TIMES more expensive.  I'm sure some will point out that viper's is 4-stat expansion-era gear, whereas zerker is 3-stat core gear, but the problem is there is no core stat that completes the condi picture with both condi damage and expertise.  Another part of the problem is that torment is of late just better than everything else, and many/most of the elite specs' condi builds favor it, while tormenting runes are relatively difficult to acquire--and expensive to make.  All this would be fine if all of the elite specs had viable/competetive power builds, but many of them just don't.

 

So, Anet, aside from locking poorer players out of effectively playing and enjoying these specs, what exactly is the point of this?  It seems to me some adjustments are badly needed here.

[Infusion.7149]

You don't need to use tormenting runes though. Nightmare runes are run on mirages , renegades, scourges and harbinger DPS ; elementalist rune on elementalists and cDPS mechanist ; balthazar rune on firebrand or willbender ; krait runes on soulbeasts and cDPS virtuoso; renegade rune on berserkers and holos; aristocracy rune on condi alac mechanist. There's only a need for tormenting rune on quickness harbinger and specter.

You are also able to get stat select gear and just stat select viper.

Edited March 16, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Bladezephyr.5714]

As it happens I'm gearing a specter. 😄 And yes you can get stat-selectable gear and nightmare runes but you have to farm it, you can't just buy it.  For some of those specs tormenting runes is a fine alternative, aside from the outrageous price.  The point is no matter how you slice it, the "barrier to entry" is much higher for high-end condi DPS specs than for power.  And it's not like *in general* they are all that much better--in some circumstances and against certain bosses power is even preferable.  Except of course on elite specs that don't have a competitive power option.

Edited March 16, 2022 by Bladezephyr.5714

[Infusion.7149]

Have you seen the alacrity specter? That uses renegade runes.
https://snowcrows.com/builds/thief/specter/condition-alacrity-spectre
https://lucky-noobs.com/builds/condition-specter-alacrity

Edited March 16, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[StarPT.7431]

44 minutes ago, Bladezephyr.5714 said:

I just did the math on typical "top shelf" exotic power gear (zerker & scholar runes) vs. condi (viper's & torment runes).  I chose those because they're each the gear required/expected for the highest damage specs in the game, for power and condi, give or take specific specs' idiosyncrasies and players' play styles.  This is the gear, typically, you buy, or are recommended to buy, to do "good" DPS for your spec.  I used medium gear, since that's what I'm currently focused on gearing, and included a full set of armor, trinkets, and runes (x7) for both.  I used the sell price since it was the fastest/easiest, and while the buy price will be lower, the difference is still representative.

 

It will come as no surprise to players who've geared a condi/torment build what the results are.  Runes of tormenting are currently selling for over 14g each, which by themselves is more expensive than the entire power kit by almost a factor of two.  The total price for zerker gear was 56g 7s 39cp, whereas the viper's gear is 261g 5s 64cp, almost FIVE TIMES more expensive.  I'm sure some will point out that viper's is 4-stat expansion-era gear, whereas zerker is 3-stat core gear, but the problem is there is no core stat that completes the condi picture with both condi damage and expertise.  Another part of the problem is that torment is of late just better than everything else, and many/most of the elite specs' condi builds favor it, while tormenting runes are relatively difficult to acquire--and expensive to make.  All this would be fine if all of the elite specs had viable/competetive power builds, but many of them just don't.

 

So, Anet, aside from locking poorer players out of effectively playing and enjoying these specs, what exactly is the point of this?  It seems to me some adjustments are badly needed here.

You seem to think Anet is controlling the market...they are not...torment runes were already expensive prior to EoD (in the ballpark of 5-7g each) because they were kittening OP and post-EoD, despite the nerf, they are still pretty much in demand for builds like Harbinger and Specter so of course they went up in price (less supply more demand...ya know...stuff that makes a free market move?)

[Bladezephyr.5714]

28 minutes ago, StarPT.7431 said:

You seem to think Anet is controlling the market...they are not...

Of course they are, and not even in only one way:  First, they have a developer in charge of maintaining the economy--this is  exactly what that person does.  Then... tormenting runes can only be obtained (originally) by crafting (i.e. AFAIK they don't drop on any gear), cost 11g to make, from a recipe that's hard to get, from a large pile of materials that are equally hard to obtain. In this sense "hard to obtain" means any or all of rare, time-gated, expensive, farming-required.   If they cost 11s to make from common materials, they would be everywhere, and dirt cheap.  I'm not saying they should be that cheap, necessarily... but Anet absolutely controls every one of those factors. 

And by the way, I'm not even saying that they should cost the same as scholar runes (which are themselves not really cheap, as runes go).  I'm just saying that the gap between this and the best power gear in the game is kind of ridiculous.

Edited March 17, 2022 by Bladezephyr.5714

[Bladezephyr.5714]

25 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Have you seen the alacrity specter? That uses renegade runes.
https://snowcrows.com/builds/thief/specter/condition-alacrity-spectre
https://lucky-noobs.com/builds/condition-specter-alacrity

Yes I have, and it does about 75% of the DPS of the condi specter with tormenting runes.  It's not comparable to top-end power DPS builds, or even some boon support builds.  Power bannersworn does 37K, for example.

[Infusion.7149]

1 minute ago, Bladezephyr.5714 said:

Yes I have, and it does about 75% of the DPS of the condi specter with tormenting runes.  It's not comparable to top-end power DPS builds, or even some boon support builds.  Power bannersworn does 37K, for example.

It's a support that does DPS. If you just want gear relevant for instanced content it is fine.

Also if you played bladesworn you would know most people are still opting to stay on berserker.

[Bladezephyr.5714]

That's not really the point, either, though.  Yeah, viper's + tormenting is way more expensive than zerker, but so is literally every other common condi gear set.  Trailblazer's is more expensive than viper's... All the decent condi DPS sets are more expensive than the best power gear in the game.  Things don't have to cost the same, but players who want to try out condi options really ought to have options that are at least reasonably comparable.

[MineMeMy.7854]

get  legendary fix all your problems

 

[Bladezephyr.5714]

1 minute ago, MineMeMy.7854 said:

get  legendary fix all your problems

 

Yeah, right, cuz that's so much cheaper and easier to get than a set of exotic viper's... 🤣

[Labjax.2465]

The EoD meta has got people asking why so many players are poor in effectiveness, well this is surely one reason why. Getting a full set of Exotic gear for your build isn't necessarily straightforward. It doesn't make much sense to me either because this game's big thing is there is no vertical gear treadmill that repeats with expansions. The main progression is horizontal. But somehow it's in this state where essentially entry level gear at this point for 80 (Exotic) can be cost prohibitive and confusing to get a full set of with the desired stats.

[Strider Pj.2193]

Attention Anet:  Please remove the free market,.  
 

Attention Anet:  please nurf Trading Post

 

 

 

[Telgum.6071]

Oh boy, to think once I almost decided to not make x6 legendary runes.

[MineMeMy.7854]

viper's set is just cost 6G

head from ice golem maw box

and other 5 from VB

no one will buy the crafted set

 

 trinkets from LW currency is free

Edited March 17, 2022 by MineMeMy.7854

[MineMeMy.7854]

and if you do 98CM everyday u can get torment easy

[Bladezephyr.5714]

7 minutes ago, MineMeMy.7854 said:

viper's set is just cost 6G

head from ice golem helm

and other 5 from VB

no one will buy the crafted set

 

 trinkets from LS currency is free

 

6 minutes ago, MineMeMy.7854 said:

and if you do 98CM everyday u can get torment easy

I guess you missed where I said:

 

1 hour ago, Bladezephyr.5714 said:

And yes you can get stat-selectable gear and nightmare runes but you have to farm it, you can't just buy it.  For some of those specs tormenting runes is a fine alternative, aside from the outrageous price.  The point is no matter how you slice it, the "barrier to entry" is much higher for high-end condi DPS specs than for power.

Anything that you have to farm is NOT free.  It costs you time.  Gold and karma are ubiquitous, but you only have berries or petrified stumps if you farmed them--most noobs won't have any, so you're talking days or weeks of farming, depending on how much time they have to play.  But not so for zerker--much more likely the average player has enough to buy a full set TODAY, and if not, do a few metas and you will. And, you can get a full set of zerker armor from karma vendors for zero gold, and even a lot of noobs will have enough karma for the set.  So by your measure zerker armor is still cheaper than vipers by infinity percent.

You also ignored trinkets, so no it's not 6g.  And do you really think all these people having trouble with the DE meta are going to do CM98?  I don't.    Let's be real here--anyone who RIGHT NOW has enough airship parts or LW cubits to buy the gear is...not who we're talking about, and not the majority of the player base.

[TheWaternymphHC.1847]

If you have the Lunatic armor recipes from the Halloween vendor, you can craft stat-selectable exotic gear that is account-bound for a couple of gold each.

1 hour ago, Bladezephyr.5714 said:

tormenting runes can only be obtained (originally) by crafting (i.e. AFAIK they don't drop on any gear), cost 11g to make, from a recipe that's hard to get, from a large pile of materials that are equally hard to obtain.

250 Watchwork Sprockets per rune is a little bit silly... Like so many other recipes that require fairly rare materials. Personally I think Anet should consider re-balancing some of the more expensive recipes once the dust of EoD has settled.

[MineMeMy.7854]

11 minutes ago, Bladezephyr.5714 said:

 

I guess you missed where I said:

 

Anything that you have to farm is NOT free.  It costs you time.  Gold and karma are ubiquitous, but you only have berries or petrified stumps if you farmed them--most noobs won't have any, so you're talking days or weeks of farming, depending on how much time they have to play.  But not so for zerker--much more likely the average player has enough to buy a full set TODAY, and if not, do a few metas and you will. And, you can get a full set of zerker armor from karma vendors for zero gold, and even a lot of noobs will have enough karma for the set.  So by your measure zerker armor is still cheaper than vipers by infinity percent.

You also ignored trinkets, so no it's not 6g.  And do you really think all these people having trouble with the DE meta are going to do CM98?  I don't.    Let's be real here--anyone who RIGHT NOW has enough airship parts or LW cubits to buy the gear is...not who we're talking about, and not the majority of the player base.

 trinket is easy, anet make great place to get them , that is IBS SM 3EZ everyone can join it for LW token to get  trinkeks

 

if u gear up u can easy to do some fractal to get back the gear "investment"

Edited March 17, 2022 by MineMeMy.7854

[Bladezephyr.5714]

Yeah I know how to get the gear.  You're completely missing the point, which is that it takes 5x as much effort to gear yourself for condi than for power, and if you weren't planning ahead for it that effort starts now.  Whereas for power gear a large portion of the player base has the 50g in the bank, and can buy the full set RIGHT NOW.

[Infusion.7149]

You'd have a point if you were saying we need more sources of watchwork sprockets or reducing the sprockets required for torment rune. But no, you made a thread complaining about condi, where the most played builds (firebrand, ren , scourge) don't use that rune.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/User:Tanetris/So_You_Want_To_Gear_a_Character#See_also

Edited March 17, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Bladezephyr.5714]

1 minute ago, Infusion.7149 said:

You'd have a point if you were saying we need more sources of watchwork sprockets or reducing the sprockets required for torment rune. But no, you made a thread complaining about condi, where the most played builds (firebrand, ren , scourge) don't use that rune.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/User:Tanetris/So_You_Want_To_Gear_a_Character#See_also

My point is perfectly valid.  Pick a rune that's free, and add it to vipers.  That'll get you down to about 157g, which is still about 3x the cost of a full set of zerker with scholar runes.  It doesn't matter what condi set you pick, or what rune you put on it... the cost is far greater for the condi set than the zerker set.  Doesn't matter if you're farming gold, airship parts, berries, whatever. It's still way more effort to get condi. Period.

[jcH.7109]

1 minute ago, Bladezephyr.5714 said:

Yeah I know how to get the gear.  You're completely missing the point, which is that it takes 5x as much effort to gear yourself for condi than for power, and if you weren't planning ahead for it that effort starts now.  Whereas for power gear a large portion of the player base has the 50g in the bank, and can buy the full set RIGHT NOW.

You make it sound like it’s so difficult to obtain condi gear. It’s really not. Instead of whining about it on the forum, why not actually play the game and earn your condi gear? You can play pvp/wvw/fractals and buy gear from vendors. You can craft your own condi gear. You can also farm silverwastes or whatever the most efficient gold farming meta is and buy from TP. Condi gear is more expensive on the TP than power gear most likely because casual players (the majority) probably tend to favor direct damage

[Infusion.7149]

3 minutes ago, Bladezephyr.5714 said:

My point is perfectly valid.  Pick a rune that's free, and add it to vipers.  That'll get you down to about 157g, which is still about 3x the cost of a full set of zerker with scholar runes.  It doesn't matter what condi set you pick, or what rune you put on it... the cost is far greater for the condi set than the zerker set.  Doesn't matter if you're farming gold, airship parts, berries, whatever. It's still way more effort to get condi. Period.

There are no such "adjustments" required then since viper's is available in stat select boxes. If you were making ascended weapons the only difference would be the viper's inscription and if you buy from the strike vendor there is no premium for viper's.

 

[MineMeMy.7854]

4 minutes ago, Bladezephyr.5714 said:

My point is perfectly valid.  Pick a rune that's free, and add it to vipers.  That'll get you down to about 157g, which is still about 3x the cost of a full set of zerker with scholar runes.  It doesn't matter what condi set you pick, or what rune you put on it... the cost is far greater for the condi set than the zerker set.  Doesn't matter if you're farming gold, airship parts, berries, whatever. It's still way more effort to get condi. Period.

so the problem is just the Watchwork Sprocket price right?