59 replies to this topic

[duncanmix]

You are doing this from view of mathematics, but reality is a bit different. I have feeling that you don't even play this game that much to understand difference of those stats increase. I will try to put it simple, and this is how you should do your tests in future:

2 rings = 52 stat increase
6 armor pieces = xx stat increase
back + 2 jewel + amulet = xx stat increase
total set = XX stat increase

Now since its easiest to see difference with power stat, rush to the heart of the mist with warrior pick an axe, and slowly add power through traits while hitting golems. You would be surprised how much difference those "little" % gives.

Edited by duncanmix, 27 December 2012 - 11:13 AM.

[Featherman]

The base 916 stats, especially the ones in vitatilty, are misleading because 1) they don't necessarily represent a character's power with no gear stats, 2) Damage and overally performance in this game compounds conditionally, i.e. condition on crit, critical multipliers, boon stacking, etc, and 3) Sets such as celestial do not follow the same stat distribution.

In other words, it's fairly useless to quantify the difference by pure percentages unless you're going to go all the way and do it for each possible build.

Edited by Featherman, 27 December 2012 - 11:39 AM.

[Humfly]

Var, on 27 December 2012 - 05:20 AM, said:

This point is utterly pointless; ascended is account bound. Having that as a filter would ammount to having "look for nothing" as a filter. You may want to put the horse before the cart, rather than the otherway around.

Why should ascended items be account bound? Legendaries (supposedly the biggest status symbols in the game) are not. Who says future ascended items will be account bound? Anet already said ascended items will be available outside FotM in the future, yet, they have infusion sockets which specifically link them to FotM.

When it comes to equipment I have trouble detecting any 'joined up thinking' from Anet since the game release. FotM has obviously been worked on for some time but it seems to have be inserted in the panic without enough thought. It was added with Southsun and the Karka invasion but has nothing at all to do with it. It puts Lions Arch permanently in overflows - very dumb. It introduced the first ascended items tied to agony and FotM but impacting the whole world bar sPvP. Maybe they will come up with something sensible but I don't see how they can put asceneded and stupid infusion sockets back in the box.

[Var]

Humfly, on 27 December 2012 - 03:35 PM, said:

Why should ascended items be account bound? Legendaries (supposedly the biggest status symbols in the game) are not. Who says future ascended items will be account bound? Anet already said ascended items will be available outside FotM in the future, yet, they have infusion sockets which specifically link them to FotM.

It doesn't matter what they should be or what they will by, what matters is what they currently are and they currently are all account bound. Having them on the TP as a filter, at the moment, would be pointless and serve no purpose but to waste people's time in adding said filter. Adding them in the future through alternative methods of acquiring also does not necessarily change whether or not they will remain account bound; take for example WvW rewards: exotics, rares, or greens, these are all bound upon being bought and there is little reason to suppose that the method will suddenly change for ascended.

The infusion slots don't specifically link them to FotM, they link them to the mechanic of Agony or the need for infusions which, as we've been told, isn't going to be limited to FotM. They are linked to FotM in the current time frame but the slot in and of itself was designed with longer goals in mind. Moreover the slots still award stats and as such still have value akin to the value that was held by gem slots or upgrade slots of the past, the fact that they all come with +5 AR doesn't suddenly change this.

Whether we like it or not, it seems that Ascended was made, in some ways, as the tier that cannot be bought (with gold/money). They may well add it as rewards for dungeons (once they do their supposed restructuring of said dungeons) and/or as an expensive karma reward (which karma really needs as an outlet) and/or crafting objective that may or may not require some of the above mentioned dungeon or karma rewards and/or part of the scavenger hunts that they plan to use for future legendary precursors.

Humfly, on 27 December 2012 - 03:35 PM, said:

When it comes to equipment I have trouble detecting any 'joined up thinking' from Anet since the game release. FotM has obviously been worked on for some time but it seems to have be inserted in the panic without enough thought. It was added with Southsun and the Karka invasion but has nothing at all to do with it. It puts Lions Arch permanently in overflows - very dumb. It introduced the first ascended items tied to agony and FotM but impacting the whole world bar sPvP. Maybe they will come up with something sensible but I don't see how they can put asceneded and stupid infusion sockets back in the box.

The fact that it was added with Southsun and Karka is immaterial to the point, jumping puzzles and minidungeons were added with the Halloween event... and they had nothing to do with Halloween. When the team decides to add content has little bearing on whether or not it happens to overlap with other content. I don't particularly see why making LA, the hub for everything anyway, the hub for everything anyway is a particular problem. Without a proper lfg tool, putting it in LA might be for the best because if you had split the populace between a hub for FotM and a hub for all the other dungeons and content (LA), you'd have split the playerbase in an unhelpful way. Its not an ellegant implementation, sure (but the whole of FotM and Ascended wasn't planned out for the best, the AMA even said as much: they mucked it up).

I really don't see why you hate infusions slots. They are just another version of an upgrade slot.

[Magi]

Daesu, on 27 December 2012 - 09:12 AM, said:

A small percentage of a big number is still a pretty big number, notwithstanding your assumptions.  That is the problem with using percentages for such calculations to justify your point.

The beauty of a percentage is that it shows the power of "something" relative to another "something." In this case, I'm using stat points. When I say that the difference between the Stat Point contribution of Exotic vs Ascended gear is 2.853%, I'm saying just that. Ascended gear contributes a net 2.853% more stat points to your overall stat distribution. Not that Ascended gear possesses 2.853% more stat points, nor that Ascended gear is 2.853% more effective than Exotic gear. In truth, Ascended gear provides ~12% more stat points than Exotic gear. It is also important to realize that you cannot strictly say that you are 12% more powerful with Ascended, rather than Exotic, gear because of the role your base stats play in the overall scheme of things. When I use percentages to compare the situations, that sort of "small percentage of a large number is a large-ish number" argument is invalid because of this relative-power quality. You'll not start one-shotting enemies, nor will you probably notice a significant increase in "killing potential" because your power increase is very small relative to the opponent.

I'll just reiterate that you cannot say that Ascended gear will cause entire zergs to roll over their opponents, introducing an inherent imbalance. Why? First of all, the increased points are spread across three to four stats. This means that not all of them are contributed towards Power, or Precision, or Crit Damage, meaning the enemy's damage-related effectiveness cannot be said to be X% higher. Second, What's to say that the opposer doesn't have a contradictory stat spread? That is, it is entirely within the realm of possibility that the opposer possesses a Toughness- or Vitality- heavy stat spread, effectively reducing the effectiveness of the aggressor's increased "power." The problem here is that there is no base line you can use to compare the two situations, making any conjecture ineffective and wildly speculative.

There is a very specific reason why I used the calculations and statistics I did.

duncanmix, on 27 December 2012 - 11:08 AM, said:

You are doing this from view of mathematics, but reality is a bit different. I have feeling that you don't even play this game that much to understand difference of those stats increase. I will try to put it simple, and this is how you should do your tests in future:

2 rings = 52 stat increase
6 armor pieces = xx stat increase
back + 2 jewel + amulet = xx stat increase
total set = XX stat increase

Now since its easiest to see difference with power stat, rush to the heart of the mist with warrior pick an axe, and slowly add power through traits while hitting golems. You would be surprised how much difference those "little" % gives.

I did break down the stat increases in the Spoiler tags, if you'd have read them a bit more closely. All it takes is less than a couple of seconds of simple addition to find out the aggregate increases.

The power business is relatively inconsequential due to a couple different reasons. Firstly, damage is derived from more stats than just power, namely precision, crit damage, and condition damage. Furthermore, other stats combat these increases by providing defensive bonuses. That means that your warrior with +X% more power will never do consistent enough damage across all players to warrant such a test. Furthermore, if you're talking about scaling with skills, there are also a couple flaws. Each class's individual skills would scale differently than another class's, therefore making such a test pointless. This is why I mainly stuck to solely tabulating the NET stat increases, not including the effect these stats have. This post is in the Tyrian Assembly, and therefore is generalized to apply to all builds and classes.

Just to add, you're looking at the damage as too simple of a stat. The gear as a whole wouldn't increase your power by the 2.853%, it would increase the total number of stat points by that number of percentage points. Those extra stat points would then be spread amongst three to four stats (in the case of regular gear). If anything, this reinforces my point, rather than takes away from it.

Featherman, on 27 December 2012 - 11:24 AM, said:

The base 916 stats, especially the ones in vitatilty, are misleading because 1) they don't necessarily represent a character's power with no gear stats, 2) Damage and overally performance in this game compounds conditionally, i.e. condition on crit, critical multipliers, boon stacking, etc, and 3) Sets such as celestial do not follow the same stat distribution.

In other words, it's fairly useless to quantify the difference by pure percentages unless you're going to go all the way and do it for each possible build.

The point of this thread wasn't to specifically show the impact of the stat increases on each and every single build with every single iteration imaginable. That's exceedingly unreasonable and generally useless. What it is, however, is a simple projection of what a full set of Ascended gear offers stat-wise. That is why I decomposed everything to general stat points; it illustrates better the potential of the armor.

I also purposely stayed away from Celestial gear because there's a very small pool of data to draw from if you want to ensure an accurate projection. Plus, in no way is this gear even remotely common. For the majority of the people the majority of the time, they'll be using the typical, focused 3-4 stat spread gear. The only exception to this is the common usage of Runes of Divinity, however I addressed why I ignored runes/sigils in the OP.

Edited by Magi, 27 December 2012 - 06:47 PM.

[duncanmix]

Everything u responded to me is totally irrelevant. U can add XX number of stat of your choice and do different tests. I was just trying to simplify with axe warrior because it doesn't depend on conditions. Also crit and crit dmg do change results but you can simply just watch when it doesn't crit and compare dmg.

However since u wanna be ignorant of my point I'll explain: your 2.853% of points is not small deal as you said. You need to run tests. If u distribute those 2.853% in only power somehow through trait changing etc my test would show u how important it is. (with crit even more).
If u don't understand this then try to understand this:
2.853% in power is equal to 2.853% in 4 different stats of your choice, especially since u can manipulate with stats in other ways and even if u don't other stats are valuable as well.
My suggestion to add power was simply for making less trouble with test. If u wanna be full nerdy nab then go ahead and put 4 different stats, then call friend and make him hit you many times to compare dmg u receive then u hit him many times so u compare  your dmg to him. Then u come here with your test result how much dmg u receive less + how much dmg u do more.

TLDR - less theory on paper and more in game tests so u understand better.

Edited by duncanmix, 27 December 2012 - 07:02 PM.

[Daesu]

Magi, on 27 December 2012 - 06:33 PM, said:

The beauty of a percentage is that it shows the power of "something" relative to another "something." In this case, I'm using stat points. When I say that the difference between the Stat Point contribution of Exotic vs Ascended gear is 2.853%, I'm saying just that. Ascended gear contributes a net 2.853% more stat points to your overall stat distribution. Not that Ascended gear possesses 2.853% more stat points, nor that Ascended gear is 2.853% more effective than Exotic gear. In truth, Ascended gear provides ~12% more stat points than Exotic gear. It is also important to realize that you cannot strictly say that you are 12% more powerful with Ascended, rather than Exotic, gear because of the role your base stats play in the overall scheme of things. When I use percentages to compare the situations, that sort of "small percentage of a large number is a large-ish number" argument is invalid because of this relative-power quality. You'll not start one-shotting enemies, nor will you probably notice a significant increase in "killing potential" because your power increase is very small relative to the opponent.

I'll just reiterate that you cannot say that Ascended gear will cause entire zergs to roll over their opponents, introducing an inherent imbalance. Why? First of all, the increased points are spread across three to four stats. This means that not all of them are contributed towards Power, or Precision, or Crit Damage, meaning the enemy's damage-related effectiveness cannot be said to be X% higher. Second, What's to say that the opposer doesn't have a contradictory stat spread? That is, it is entirely within the realm of possibility that the opposer possesses a Toughness- or Vitality- heavy stat spread, effectively reducing the effectiveness of the aggressor's increased "power." The problem here is that there is no base line you can use to compare the two situations, making any conjecture ineffective and wildly speculative.

Based on your own calculations and assumptions, the stat difference is simply 4295 - 3828 = 467 stat points. A difference of 467 stat points is a big difference, no matter how you look at it.  The reason why you get a small percentage increase is because you base it off from the 5064 + item tier stat points which is a huge number (8892 for exotic and 9359 for ascended).   Using percentages like that is misleading, if ArenaNet were to simply increase or decrease the available trait points at level 80, that percentage of yours would change even though nothing changed within the exotic and ascended item tiers.

A full set of superior rune of divinity (the most expensive armor rune right now) only gives +60 stat points.  467 stat points is the relative difference we are talking about based on your assumptions.

Edited by Daesu, 27 December 2012 - 07:43 PM.

[Magi]

Daesu, on 27 December 2012 - 07:29 PM, said:

Based on your own calculations and assumptions, the stat difference is simply 4295 - 3828 = 467 stat points. A difference of 467 stat points is a big difference, no matter how you look at it.  The reason why you get a small percentage increase is because you base it off from the 5064 + item tier stat points which is a huge number (8892 for exotic and 9359 for ascended).   Using percentages like that is misleading, if ArenaNet were to simply increase or decrease the available trait points at level 80, that percentage of yours would change even though nothing changed within the exotic and ascended item tiers.

A full set of superior rune of divinity (the most expensive armor rune right now) only gives +60 stat points.  467 stat points is the relative difference we are talking about based on your assumptions.

That's the point, though. What I'm saying is that the overall impact of the new tier is very small because of the base stats already present. However, using that 467 stat point difference, the Damage formula found here: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage, and assuming it all gets dumped into power, here's the difference between your damage with Exotic and Ascended gear.

Damage = (Weapon Damage) x (Power) x (Skill Coefficient) / (Armor)

Let's say, for the sake of simplicity, the Skill Coefficient is 1. Also, we'll use the Armor value of 2600, used in Tooltip Damage calculations. Keep in mind that this will ultimately increase because Armor = Toughness + Defense. Toughness certainly increases with the new tier, and Defense also has the potential to increase. Therefore, the damage I'm going to calculate is going to be higher than the actual damage. Once again, we'll assume all 467 points go into power. We'll also assume the 1120 weapon damage I calculated in the OP.

Damage = (1120) x (467) x (1) / (2600) = 201.169 damage. So, those 467 points provide a damage increase of 201.169 damage.

However, it is exceedingly important to realize that the damage done will change by a factor of (Skill Coefficient) / (Armor). It is completely possible that this value could tend towards 0 given an increase in armor with the next tier coupled with a high-toughness build. That's getting a tad specific, though, so we'll just stick with the 2600 armor value.

Addendum: Did a search, found a list of Warrior Skill Coefficients here: http://www.guildwars...ts#entry2027584.

Max = 2.18 (eviscerate w/ full adrenaline)
Min = 0.20 (Split Shot, Whirling Axe, Smoldering Arrow)
Average = 0.89

Using the same assumptions as above:

Damage_max = 438.55
Damage_min = 40.23
Damage_avg = 179.04

Definitely game-breaking.

[Daesu]

Magi, on 27 December 2012 - 08:08 PM, said:

That's the point, though. What I'm saying is that the overall impact of the new tier is very small because of the base stats already present. However, using that 467 stat point difference, the Damage formula found here: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage, and assuming it all gets dumped into power, here's the difference between your damage with Exotic and Ascended gear.

Damage = (Weapon Damage) x (Power) x (Skill Coefficient) / (Armor)

Let's say, for the sake of simplicity, the Skill Coefficient is 1. Also, we'll use the Armor value of 2600, used in Tooltip Damage calculations. Keep in mind that this will ultimately increase because Armor = Toughness + Defense. Toughness certainly increases with the new tier, and Defense also has the potential to increase. Therefore, the damage I'm going to calculate is going to be higher than the actual damage. Once again, we'll assume all 467 points go into power. We'll also assume the 1120 weapon damage I calculated in the OP.

Damage = (1120) x (467) x (1) / (2600) = 201.169 damage. So, those 467 points provide a damage increase of 201.169 damage.

However, it is exceedingly important to realize that the damage done will change by a factor of (Skill Coefficient) / (Armor). It is completely possible that this value could tend towards 0 given an increase in armor with the next tier coupled with a high-toughness build. That's getting a tad specific, though, so we'll just stick with the 2600 armor value.

Addendum: Did a search, found a list of Warrior Skill Coefficients here: http://www.guildwars...ts#entry2027584.

Max = 2.18 (eviscerate w/ full adrenaline)
Min = 0.20 (Split Shot, Whirling Axe, Smoldering Arrow)
Average = 0.89

Using the same assumptions as above:

Damage_max = 438.55
Damage_min = 40.23
Damage_avg = 179.04

Definitely game-breaking.

Even a 1 point difference can determine the difference between life or death for a character.

I suggest that you do a thought experiment.  Let us more than double the stat difference between exotic and ascended from 467 stat points to a whopping 1000 stat points difference.  Plugging in the rest of your numbers you get (4828/(4828+5064) - 3828/(3828+5064)) * 100% = about 5.8% difference only.  Are you going to come back to us and say that a 1000 stat points difference between exotic and ascended tiers is small?

Calculating the numbers correctly is one thing, interpreting your results correctly is another.  Taking those percentages and applying it to the argument that the actual difference in advantage between exotic and ascended is small, is misleading.

Edited by Daesu, 27 December 2012 - 08:52 PM.

[Magi]

Daesu, on 27 December 2012 - 08:48 PM, said:

Even a 1 point difference can determine the difference between life or death for a character.

I suggest that you do a thought experiment.  Let us more than double the stat difference between exotic and ascended from 467 stat points to a whopping 1000 stat points difference.  Plugging in the rest of your numbers you get (4828/(4828+5064) - 3828/(3828+5064)) * 100% = about 5.8% difference only.  Are you going to come back to us and say that a 1000 stat points difference between exotic and ascended tiers is small?

Calculating the numbers correctly is one thing, interpreting your results correctly is another.  Taking those percentages and applying it to the argument that the actual difference in advantage between exotic and ascended is small, is misleading.

1000 points results in a base (read: skill coefficient of 1) damage increase of 430.77 damage. I trust you can multiply in your desired skill coefficients to see the results. You are correct, that is fairly significant. Except that you've missed some of my key assumptions in the OP. Mainly the part where I determine the most logical stat increase is around 12%, given our current data. Your value would yield an Ascended Tier relative power of around 208%, or a delta of 26%, which isn't even in line with the backslot's exhibited pattern. Not to mention that, as I said in the OP, the backslots don't really have a concrete pattern and tend to do whatever they feel like stat-wise.

I could choose any arbitrary value of the skill point difference and start demonstrating how much more incredibly powerful you'd be. Except that's not logical because there's no precedence for it. So why is it even being discussed? Pick reasonable numbers based off of the data present in the game, and argue that.

[Humfly]

Var, on 27 December 2012 - 05:11 PM, said:

I really don't see why you hate infusions slots. They are just another version of an upgrade slot.

Because they replace the upgrade slot meaning you need a zillion versions of the base Items with stats for all the possible upgrades that could have been slotted. You have much less chance of getting the base and built in upgrade stats you want and no possibility of changing the upgrade.

Upgrade slots and upgrades are a fundamental part of all equipment in the game except the ascended items we currently have which makes no sense at all. I can't see any reason for it other than it was easier to bodge agony resistance in the existing upgrade slot rather than have a second infusion slot or some other mechanism for infusion.

IMO we have ascended items as an ZOMG panic measure when Anet saw hardly anyone bothering to make legendaries because hardly anyone was prepared to spend that much time/effort/in game gold or $ on a skin. Legnedaries as a reason people played the game and as a huge sink of gameworld gold and materials were a fail. So they introduce a new tier with increased stats and lower cost which more people are prepared to play/grind for. The unfathomable bit is why this new tier is only available in FotM and why it has any specific association with the agony mechanic. Anet stated almost of the day of FotM release that ascended availabilty being restricted to FotM was wrong so they obviously can't fathom what they have done either.

[Daesu]

Magi, on 27 December 2012 - 09:09 PM, said:

I could choose any arbitrary value of the skill point difference and start demonstrating how much more incredibly powerful you'd be. Except that's not logical because there's no precedence for it. So why is it even being discussed? Pick reasonable numbers based off of the data present in the game, and argue that.

I did say that it was a thought experiment and you did not think about what my little experiment was trying to prove.  It proved my point that representing those numbers as percentages, to argue that the actual difference in advantage between exotic and ascended is small, would be misleading.

Magi, on 27 December 2012 - 09:09 PM, said:

You are correct, that is fairly significant.

So you agree with me that a 1000 stat points difference between exotic and ascended would be fairly significant.  Then why does your equation only show a small percentage difference of 5.8% for that situation?  This shows that the 5.8% result, from your equation, is misleading when applied to your argument.

Magi, on 27 December 2012 - 09:09 PM, said:

That's getting a tad specific, though, so we'll just stick with the 2600 armor value.

Addendum: Did a search, found a list of Warrior Skill Coefficients here: http://www.guildwars...ts#entry2027584.

Max = 2.18 (eviscerate w/ full adrenaline)
Min = 0.20 (Split Shot, Whirling Axe, Smoldering Arrow)
Average = 0.89

Using the same assumptions as above:

Damage_max = 438.55
Damage_min = 40.23
Damage_avg = 179.04

Definitely game-breaking.

Unless you specially trait for toughness, 2600 armor is pretty high.  My level 80 warrior has lower armor than that with full exotics on, so I think that 2000 armor would be a fairer estimate to use.  Also how did you get an average skill coefficient of 0.89 when (2.18+0.2)/2 = 1.19 instead.

Anyway, using your numbers for skill coefficients and assuming 2000 armor, I get the following:

Damage_max = 570
Damage_min = 52.3
Damage_avg = 232.75 or 311.21 (if using 1.19 as the skill coefficient)

Which is fairly significant.

Edited by Daesu, 28 December 2012 - 12:33 AM.

[Magi]

Daesu, on 27 December 2012 - 11:48 PM, said:

I did say that it was a thought experiment and you did not think about what my little experiment was trying to prove.  It proved my point that representing those numbers as percentages, to argue that the actual difference in advantage between exotic and ascended is small, would be misleading.



Unless you specially trait for toughness, 2600 armor is pretty high.  My level 80 warrior has lower armor than that with full exotics on, so I think that 2000 armor would be a fairer estimate to use.  Also how did you get an average skill coefficient of 0.89 when (2.18+0.2)/2 = 1.19 instead.

Anyway, using your numbers for skill coefficients and assuming 2000 armor, I get the following:

Damage_max = 570
Damage_min = 52.3
Damage_avg = 232.75

Which is fairly significant.

It's a list of 72 or so skill coefficients, I found the average from those, and then extracted the min and max from the list. Also, that's true now that I think about it. 2600 is the value used for the tooltips so I just directly used it without even thinking about what it meant. Whoops!

I think you have to be careful when looking at those values, though. The average being 0.89 tells us that the vast majority of the skill coefficients lie below 1.0, with only 20 out of the 72 being above. The majority of these high coefficients are also from burst skills, or conditional skills. They're not something that can be spammed, often possess a long-ish cooldown timer, and are easily dodged due to the charge-up animations (PvP-wise). So, I think it's better to look at the base damage increase and the average damage increase, if only because they provide a good look at the conditions found the vast majority of the time.

[Daesu]

So like I have shown, just looking at the percentages does not give a good indication of how overpowered ascended is compared to exotic.  Even with a skill coefficient of 0.89, that is a difference of about 233 damage using the numbers and assumptions from Magi, with a fairer number for armor.  This is not taking critical damage into account, which would be even more powerful.

I think that it is not overpowering, but definitely significant enough to warrant its own tier between exotic and legendary.  The point still stands that it is a gear grind towards a higher gear tier.

Edited by Daesu, 28 December 2012 - 02:01 AM.

[Trei]

Humfly, on 27 December 2012 - 09:37 PM, said:

Because they replace the upgrade slot meaning you need a zillion versions of the base Items with stats for all the possible upgrades that could have been slotted. You have much less chance of getting the base and built in upgrade stats you want and no possibility of changing the upgrade.

Upgrade slots and upgrades are a fundamental part of all equipment in the game except the ascended items we currently have which makes no sense at all. I can't see any reason for it other than it was easier to bodge agony resistance in the existing upgrade slot rather than have a second infusion slot or some other mechanism for infusion.

Uh... that's the point.
We won't have that zillion versions of base items.

And yet you still regard it as an additional full tier?
I have already mentioned earlier: the entire tier is little more than a sidegrade that is most effective only when dealing with Agony.

One gains this 2-3% bit of stats increase at the incalculable cost of rune set bonuses and sigils.

If you seriously still believe this tier is a true upgrade over exotics....

Edited by Trei, 28 December 2012 - 02:38 AM.

[Daesu]

Trei, on 28 December 2012 - 02:36 AM, said:

If you seriously still believe this tier is a true upgrade over exotics....

If you believe in Magi's assumptions, then it is a true upgrade over exotics.  If ascended is going to be 185% relative strength, which is 12.12% relative to exotics, as depicted on the wiki, it would be a true upgrade over exotics.

Trei, on 28 December 2012 - 02:36 AM, said:

One gains this 2-3% bit of stats increase at the incalculable cost of rune set bonuses and sigils.

The 2-3% of a big number turns out to be significant enough.

Edited by Daesu, 28 December 2012 - 03:04 AM.

[Magi]

Daesu, on 28 December 2012 - 02:58 AM, said:

If you believe in Magi's assumptions, then it is a true upgrade over exotics.  If ascended is going to be 185% relative strength, which is 12.12% relative to exotics, as depicted on the wiki, it would be a true upgrade over exotics.



The 2-3% of a big number turns out to be significant enough.

I think whether or not the Ascended gear is a worthy (read: cost-effective) upgrade depends greatly on two things. The first being the methods of acquisition that ANet implements, and the second being the stats on the higher-tier infusions. So far, it doesn't seem that Infusions are meant for anything but Agony Resistance and a token extra stat, but it could change. We don't know enough yet to say how it changes, but it could easily throw a lot of things off.

[Trei]

Daesu, on 28 December 2012 - 02:58 AM, said:

If you believe in Magi's assumptions, then it is a true upgrade over exotics.  If ascended is going to be 185% relative strength, which is 12.12% relative to exotics, as depicted on the wiki, it would be a true upgrade over exotics.

The 2-3% of a big number turns out to be significant enough.

I don't think you understood half of what I posted.

Does that 12+% cover what one potentially loses in runes and sigils combinations?

Do you lose anything upgrading from rare to exotic?

Edited by Trei, 28 December 2012 - 03:23 AM.

[Daesu]

Trei, on 28 December 2012 - 03:20 AM, said:

I don't think you understood half of what I posted.

Does that 12+% cover what one potentially loses in runes and sigils combinations?

Do you lose anything upgrading from rare to exotic?

No, if you have read the OP:

Magi said:

Additionally, runes and sigils were ignored throughout. This was mostly to create an easier approximation and to form a sort of maximum "stat potential." That is, the effects of sigils and runes are far too diverse and varied to quantify into stat points.

The 12.12% is not from me, that is from the OP too.  Whatever calculations the OP has done is under the assumption of ascended being a true upgrade tier from exotics.

That 2-3% turns out to be significant enough because it is 2-3% of a big number.

Edited by Daesu, 28 December 2012 - 03:33 AM.

[Red_Falcon]

Thanks for your calcs OP.
4-5% stats are obviously nothing that would turn the tides, as usual people are trying to make a big deal of out nothing.
In the end, Ascended tier is an optional PvE gear set, nothing more.

[Magi]

Daesu, on 28 December 2012 - 03:25 AM, said:

No, if you have read the OP:



The 12.12% is not from me, that is from the OP too.

Since the approximation of the ascended tier is formed from the exotic tier stats, the inclusion of the effect of runes/sigils/orbs would only serve to shift the data up, not increase the difference between the two values. That said, with the jewel stats added in, the rings show an 11.9% improvement over the previous tier. So, it could very well be that, if the infusions remain with only 5 stat points, the effect of at least orbs would need to be included in the approximation to get the "truer" values. However, I don't think it would cause the improvement to deviate very far from 12%.

[Trei]

Daesu, on 28 December 2012 - 03:25 AM, said:

No, if you have read the OP:

Precisely.

He started the thread merely to hypothesize a pure statistical value to the quantifiable part of the tier, and project what future armor or weapon pieces could have in terms of stats.

Instead of discussing the calculations themselves, some of those who posted simply said, among other thread-irrelevant issues, stats are not the point.

Then there are those who content the stats increase mean a lot more than they look, which is again irrelevant.

As for the post of mine you quoted, that was only a response directly addressed to the poster I quoted, regarding a particular contradiction.

Edited by Trei, 28 December 2012 - 03:42 AM.

[Daesu]

Trei, on 28 December 2012 - 03:33 AM, said:

Precisely.

He started the thread merely to show a pure statistical value to the quantifiable part of the tier.
Instead of discussing the calculations themselves, some of those who posted simply said, among other thread-irrelevant issues, stats are not the point.

Then there are those who content the stats increase mean a lot more than they look, which is again irrelevant.

Then ascended is not merely a "sidegrade" from exotics.  Granted that there are still information that we do not know of yet as to how ascended armors/weapons are going to be implemented, it is overly presumptuous to call them that at this point in time.

The problem with standalone percentage numbers like 2-3%, is that it is a percentage of something and you have to understand what that something is before you can accurately interpret what they mean.

[Trei]

Daesu, on 28 December 2012 - 03:41 AM, said:

Then ascended is not merely a "sidegrade" from exotics.  Granted that there are still information that we do not know of yet as to how ascended armors/weapons are going to be implemented, it is overly presumptuous to call them that at this point in time.

Let me try this again:
Do you lose anything going from Rare to Exotic?

Would Anet have replaced the current asc gears' upgrade slot with an infusion slot instead if they have different plans for future armor and weapon upgrade slots?

We don't base a hypothesis on what might happen in the future, we use data we have right now.

Edited by Trei, 28 December 2012 - 03:52 AM.

[Daesu]

Trei, on 28 December 2012 - 03:49 AM, said:

Let me try this again:
Do you lose anything going from Rare to Exotic?

Would Anet have replaced the current asc gears' upgrade slot with an infusion slot instead if they have different plans for future armor and weapon upgrade slots?

We don't base a hypothesis on what might happen in the future, we use data we have right now.

I can't answer your questions, as I do not have that information at this time.  He made the fair assumption that ascended would gain as much strength relative to exotics as exotics to rare.

I can say that the OP already did a fair attempt on calculating the ascended gear stats, based on the limited information that we know right now.  He generally made fair assumptions on the information that we do not yet know.

The only thing that I disagree with the OP is his interpretation of the 2-3% result and I have shown that the 2-3% result can be significant since it is a percentage of a large number.

Edited by Daesu, 28 December 2012 - 04:07 AM.

[Dasryn]

i know this sounds kinda naive, but i just spent the better part of three weeks finally getting full exotic, i was following a thread on how to tank as a guardian so i was matching my gear to the guide, finally got all the gear, the weapons, the runes, the sigils, the accessories and the jewels -------> a lot of work imho, and i was was really hoping that this ascended gear nonesense was going to be maybe like a 5% at most power increase over exotic gear as i personally HATE gear grinding and thus making it negligible so i could be content with my exotics.

but this thread has basically shattered my hopes and im a bit let down.

i was really looking forward to a game that you could gear up in less than a month and just focus on the other content in the game, playing with friends etc.

but with a level cap at an odd number like 80, ascended gear added within 3 months after launch, i can only see this situation getting worse.

i think the community back lash made them step back for a second, i mean, think about it, they said more ascended gear was coming but its bee over a month since FotM came out and there is still only the back slot and two rings of ascended gear obtainable - so i honestly think that the community made them step back and re think their strategy.

lets hope they can a majority of the ascended gear bull-to-the-shit, and focs on more dungeons with more armor sets among other things.

Red_Falcon, on 28 December 2012 - 03:31 AM, said:

Thanks for your calcs OP.
4-5% stats are obviously nothing that would turn the tides, as usual people are trying to make a big deal of out nothing.
In the end, Ascended tier is an optional PvE gear set, nothing more.

wait, from what i got out of the OP, he was saying there is a 20% increase, not 4-5%. . .maybe i missed something though, its 3 am. . .

Edited by Rickter, 28 December 2012 - 07:40 AM.

[Daesu]

Rickter, on 28 December 2012 - 07:44 AM, said:

wait, from what i got out of the OP, he was saying there is a 20% increase, not 4-5%. . .maybe i missed something though, its 3 am. . .

Because most people don't know what they are talking about when they say 4-5%.  4-5% of what?  For example, 4-5% of one million is still a very huge number.

Even with the OP's assumptions on how ascended gear maybe implemented, the difference between exotic and ascended is still as significant as the difference between rare and exotic.  I hate the new gear tier too, but we don't know enough at this point in time to form any good estimates.  We can only wait and see to ascertain just how bad this would be.

Edited by Daesu, 28 December 2012 - 08:43 AM.

[Millimidget]

Magi, on 28 December 2012 - 12:30 AM, said:

They're not something that can be spammed, often possess a long-ish cooldown timer, and are easily dodged due to the charge-up animations (PvP-wise). So, I think it's better to look at the base damage increase and the average damage increase, if only because they provide a good look at the conditions found the vast majority of the time.

Why not divide by the cooldown, arriving at some sort of DPS coefficient instead of just a flat damage coefficient.

[Magi]

Millimidget, on 28 December 2012 - 08:57 AM, said:

Why not divide by the cooldown, arriving at some sort of DPS coefficient instead of just a flat damage coefficient.

In the post I quoted, there's a more in-depth DPS analysis, including effective DPS that takes the casting animations into account. I was mostly interested in the raw damage increase given a 100% stat investment into power. Keep in mind that the actual damage increases are much lower because you cannot invest all of the new stat points into power. Also remember that armor is a function of defense plus toughness. If either of those increase, which they do due to varied builds, the actual DPS numbers will decrease again. The Average Damage increase is a very good number to use as your gauge.

Rickter, on 28 December 2012 - 07:44 AM, said:

i know this sounds kinda naive, but i just spent the better part of three weeks finally getting full exotic, i was following a thread on how to tank as a guardian so i was matching my gear to the guide, finally got all the gear, the weapons, the runes, the sigils, the accessories and the jewels -------> a lot of work imho, and i was was really hoping that this ascended gear nonesense was going to be maybe like a 5% at most power increase over exotic gear as i personally HATE gear grinding and thus making it negligible so i could be content with my exotics.

but this thread has basically shattered my hopes and im a bit let down.

i was really looking forward to a game that you could gear up in less than a month and just focus on the other content in the game, playing with friends etc.

but with a level cap at an odd number like 80, ascended gear added within 3 months after launch, i can only see this situation getting worse.

i think the community back lash made them step back for a second, i mean, think about it, they said more ascended gear was coming but its bee over a month since FotM came out and there is still only the back slot and two rings of ascended gear obtainable - so i honestly think that the community made them step back and re think their strategy.

lets hope they can a majority of the ascended gear bull-to-the-shit, and focs on more dungeons with more armor sets among other things.



wait, from what i got out of the OP, he was saying there is a 20% increase, not 4-5%. . .maybe i missed something though, its 3 am. . .

There are a few stats I threw out. The first being the percent increase of stat points from exotic to ascended. This means that the ascended tier has ~12% more stat points than the exotic tier. The second stat I calculated was the difference in total stat contribution provided by the exotic gear versus the ascended gear. Since you have 5064 stat points that are provided by your naked stats alone, the stats added by gear have a highly adjusted impact. What I found was that ascended gear holds a 2.854% higher contribution towards total stat points than your exotic gear. If you include the 5 free stat points provided by the current highest tier of infusions, it bumps up to 3-someod percent. Later on in the thread, you'll also find that I did a damage-increase calculation based on the assumption that the ascended set provided all the stats of the exotic tier, but that the extra gained stat points were fully invested into power. It's technically impossible, but it provides a good "worst-case" approximation of base damage increases (read: without critting).

What should you draw from all of this? Mainly that, while the ascended tier is most likely going to be an upgrade over the exotic tier, it doesn't look to be anywhere near as bad as most people are saying. Most likely the same difference as is found in-between the rare and exotic tiers. I also wouldn't worry about acquiring the ascended gear, either. Is it worth it to frantically upgrade right now? Definitely not. The few pieces we have access to increase your total stat points by such a small number that it isn't worth it to tunnel-vision over. In the future, when they release new methods of obtaining the gear and more gear in itself, it will most likely be logical to upgrade to this new tier. However, we cannot effectively comment on the difficulty nor the methods of obtaining the gear, because we simply do not know. I wouldn't fret over the ascended gear; your exotic gear isn't likely to be outshone for another couple months.

Edited by Magi, 28 December 2012 - 05:19 PM.

[Millimidget]

Magi, on 28 December 2012 - 05:19 PM, said:

Also remember that armor is a function of defense plus toughness. If either of those increase, which they do due to varied builds, the actual DPS numbers will decrease again.

Wouldn't increases in armor have the same effect on any DPS number you'd arrive at as it would have on any flat damage number you derived?