Reverse Ghost

Been awhile since I checked into this topic, but I want to add a comment in for those considering a bleed build, and should be of value to any conditionmancer.

Quote

After some testing done by others, and I double checked and found this to be true, you do not actually need +100% duration to get Barbed Precision to tick a 2nd time, nor for say a 5 second bleed to tick 10 times. It is rather more random, and can happen with less.

Only on the very first application of any condition would this be necessary. As the way condition damage works, once the first damaging condition is on an opponent, it starts a timer of when condition damage will tick, and all furthering conditions then must adapt and hold to that same timer. Think of a combat length as in segments like that are on ruler, and lets say the first bleed is applied at 1.5 seconds into the combat, the first tick will happen at 2.5 seconds, then 3.5 seconds, etc. So if we then use a second bleeding ability (say Barbed Precision) and it lands at 3.0 seconds into the combat, it will first tick at 3.5 seconds, then again at 4.5 seconds, etc. Following the exact same time segments set by the first bleed. Therefore, if you have only +50% duration, you would get two ticks in this scenario - because at 1.5 seconds length Barbed Precision, it is enough for it to cross 2 tick points, due to that it started counting halfway past the last tick.

What this means for the bleeder build is that 90% duration is not really way worse than 100%. Outside of the first bleed which will set the timer for all conditions, 90% is like it should be, only 10% less effective than 100%.

Terror damage which ticks off Fear works the exact same way, and that is why sometimes Fear will tick twice on damage even if you have less than +100% Fear duration.

To give an example, if your bleeds do 100 damge per tick, and you get 10 Barbed Precision proc's in a combat, at +100% Duration, you should expect 2000 damage from those procs. While at +90% duration you should expect 1900 damage (roughly on average). 80% to be 1800 damage, etc on down.

The way they have done this system is actually quite fair and means that extra duration is not wasted, or an 'all or nothing' propistion if you just fall short of hitting some magic number like +100%.

I hope this was not too confusing and is understandable. And perhaps helpful.

I played the game for a few hours (got a free beta key, so didn't pay anything for it) and have to say I wasn't really expecting much from it, and wasn't surprised when it didn't deliver any surprises. Based on the history of Cyptic... I wasn't expecting anything super flash or great. Here's my impressions.. (this is a long post, and bee aware I'm basing this only only having played up to level 10... so can't speak for beyond that):

- Combat is awful. They state it is an "action" combat system, but this is not the case. Your stuck in place whenever you use an ability and are stuck in extremely long animation locks. So when your not using an ability you can move freely around, but the moment you use an ability you get locked in place - this wouldn't be a problem except the animations for your abilities takes ages to play through. This is especially a problem since foes you face will use PBAoE's and AoE effects that you need to get out of, but if you have just used an ability you will not be able to move out of the attack - Everytime I started an attack and saw the big fred circle under me, I knew I was screwed... because by the time the animation had cleared and I attempted to either move or slide/warp out of the damage area I would get hit by the damage.

This is the same/similar system as in other hotkey games (have to stand still to use skills/abilities/attacks/etc) but the either the animations were very short or there was a way to cancel what you were doing, thus giving you a chance to get out and/or use a defensive skill. This isn't the case in Neverwinter. So if you play it, hope you like being locked in place and unable to move out of anything.

- Identify scrolls are something that comes with AD&D. However, the way they appear to be handling it is terrible. As you fight, loot, etc you will get un-identified items which can not be used without first id'ing them. Currently there is only 3 ways to get ID scrolls - rare random drops from chests, given out at a certain level (I think it's either lvl 5 or 10, but you only get 5 I believe) or through the cash-shop. There was an merchant who sold id scrolls, but that merchant has been removed. So right now the only reliable way to get id scrolls is via the cash shop. Oh, and id scrolls are non-transferable - so don't even think of making a new char and leveling it for the easy to get id scrolls... that won't work.

- Instances - for anyone who hates instances, they will hate this game. They are everywhere - and so far they all follow the same BORING style... enter dungeon level 1, fight through stationary mob groups (usually 3 or 4 to each mob) till you get near the end, where they add some 'tougher' mobs into the groups... then descend to level 2.. rinse and repeat the same basic plot till you get to the end where you fight a boss mob. Once Boss mob is down, loot the chest and leave the dungeon. I've been through about 5 main dungeons... and they all followed that same tired pattern. Heck, it's basically the pattern of the tutorial area - follow the path till the end, go to next level, fight through stationary mobs which start adding tougher mobvs then kill boss mob. *yawn*

- The game has the usual old stale loot & quest item ninja'ing that I personally hate. While you get no xp from killing mobs, other players can still get any gold/loot that drops. And quest objectives are no difference - I had quest items/objectives ninja'ed from me ... forcing me to wait around till they respawned and hope I can get it before someone else.

- The combat is boring. At least at early level's. All it involves is aiming your mouse cursor at a mob and pressing the mouse button rapidly. Toss in Q, E & R and right-mouse button as needed. Like on my Devout Cleric I would right-click a mob (this did damage and meant anyone attacking that mob would be healed) then spam mouse button, and if I got surrounded I'd hit Q (PBAoE damage and self-heal). It was boring.. lolz. On my Guardian Fighter I would Q (charge a mob and do damage - I'd kill anything that was only "1" health bar) then spam mouse-button to attack multiple  mobs in front of me, and right-click to weaken mobs if they had armor or were a bit tougher. And thats all I'd need to do... My Control Wizard was all about the spamming mouse button #1.. gooooo magic missile! Also had freeze ray on 2nd mouse button.

Seriously. No complexity at all. Basically spam 1st mouse button, with occasional/specific use of Q, E, R & 2nd mouse button. Yes you get to change these skills... as you level up. You generally get 1 new skill for these slots every 6-10 level's.. At leats thats what I found up to level 10... iI found it boring... walk into range of enemy group, decide which one to take out first (Q ability on fighter & mage), remove them and then spam attack the others.

Oh, and ranged? You have cleric and mage. Both who will struggle to kill 1 mob out of a group before they all swarm you in melee. I found on my mage I'd hit my Q (icicle) attack, kill 1 and then focus on another mob... by the time that was dead the other 1-3 mobs were on me and I'd me getting attacked. At this point I can either attack or do a m,age warp out - problem with the warp is it's very short range, and locks you into an animation when you get at your destination... and by the time you unlock and can actually do anything, the mobs are pretty much on you again.

- Trinity. Yes this is AD&D and based off these classes. and the game is trinity based. So if you love trinity based hotkey combat... this game is for you. If you detest that, don't bother with it. The skill's & talents of each class shoe-horn each class into a specific role. Devout Cleric is your healer, Guardian Fighter in your tank, Control Wizard is your CC & the rogue class (can't remember the name right now) is the melee dps. Yes every class can do damage, but the skills and abilities def show where each class is meant to be.

- Healing. There is only 3 ways to heal in this game - have a cleric along with you (or be a cleric), use potions (which can become expensive considering how much damage you will take) or constantly backtrack to 'campfires' where you will heal. I found myself walking back to campfires on everything except my cleric all the time, because otherwise I'd be out of pocket trying to buy the potions if I relied on them to heal myself. This made the game BORING as I'd spend at least 50-60% of my time traveling back and forth... *yawn*. Cleric was no problem as could self heal.

- Story. I found the story that I got access to.... to be totally uninspiring. It was your typical "1 bad guy attacks the good guys & somehow gets repelled, while that happening another bad guy steals something... so you have to chase after them".. Nothing really inspiring... and the jumps you go through. There's still stuff they never explain - like why the bad guy who's attacking in the 1st place... just up's and leaves when they basically had control of things? *shrugs*.

- Linear. Stock standard linear questing, quest A leads to B to C, etc. I came across 1 side-quest in the 1st 10 level's.... the rest was straight linear. Same pattern - get quest, travel to dungeon, destroy everything in dungeon, find out I missed something, get directed to next quest giver, then sent to next dungeon... etc and so forth.

- NPC's are boring and lifeless. No life, no commentary & no talking. You can only talk to quest npc's, and they will only have quest related stuff - once you have picked up the quest and/or handed in the quest.. you get nothing from them except for the ability to say "Goodbye".. No random comments or any kind of life from the horde of npc's that roam around the city.

- The interface is terrible. Really. To talk in chat I have to press ALT to change from "play mode".. this lets me interact with the chat window.. I then have to press ESC to get out of that and then ALT again to go back to play-mode if I want to do anything... each and every time. The default font size in the chat window is tiny... but thankfully can be adjusted. The size of your aiming circle can't be adjusted from what I can see. The whole UI to me felt clunky and terrible.

- The animations are laughable. They are bad. Like the female elf cleric I made looks like she's trying to take a dump whenever she jumps! blerch!. There's more examples.. I know this is supposedly "Beta".. but sorry, the animations are just bad.

- Character customization is not good. The females of the different races (apart from dwarf & half-orc) look extremely the same. They also use the same hair styles, eyebrows, scars & makeup/tattoo's between every race. So apart from the character's size and some distinct markings (pointy ears on elves, etc).. the females in the game all look the same. I can't comment about male chars as I never even looked. I really wish they would add more options and make some options actually unique to each race. The only unique'ish race is the half-devil (can't remember name) race, but thats only because they have a tail wedged up their butt and horns stuck on their heads.

- No camera zooming, unless you press "B" to go into "Inspect Mode"... at which point you get to zoom in and out and look around. However you can't do anything in this mode - good for screenshots, but that's it.

- Graphics.... don't be expecting good graphics. The game looks like it could have been made and sold 10 years ago. Think NWN2 graphics. I know it's a MMO, and MMO's don't generally have good graphics... but the game seriously looks dated. Even with everything maxxed up to high/ultra, 4x AA, 16x AF, 200% detail on terrain and characters (all maxxed apart from AA, which can go up to 8x)... the game looks dated, old and terrible. The characters look like they came from WoW when it first launched. (ok, maybe not quite that bad.. but feels like it... lolz)

And it's def not optimized. Many ppl complaining that they are getting fps drops, bad fps, etc.. on machines that can easily handle crysis, crysis 3 (on high at least), etc. Talking i370K's with HD 7890's / nVidio 680/690's and so on. So not low end machines (low-high to mid-high + end easily).. yet they were getting issue's. I can also attest to this, I was getting frame spikes and drops.. I'm on a AMD Phenom II x4 965 @ 3.7 with 2 HD 5870's in CFX... so not the best of machines, but enough to hold it's own (and tried with and without CFX.. get issue's either way).

- No log out to character screen. This is just not acceptable IMO. It needs toi be in place, and it isn't.

- Looting is blah. Run over gold stacks to pick up gold (and hope no-one else does it in non-instanced area's) or press "f" to loot. Oh and you have to stand ontop of the loot. I loved how they did area looting in SW:TOR.. wish more MMO's would do this.

- It's not really solo friendly... unless you don't mind being broke or spending a lot of time running back to campfires all the time... or play cleric and hope cleric can do enough damage later of to be able to solo. Game def feels like it's trying to get everyone to group up for everything.. and have 1 of each class.. so 1 tank, 1 CC, 1 healer, 1 dps.. and then 1 of something.

For me, Neverwinter is an "ok" game. Based on my experience with it today, it's not a game I would pay anything to play. Seeing as it's F2P, depending on just what F2P players get access to I might consider trying it when it comes out. But pay $60 or $200? Nope, no way no how. It was a pretty dull game, with a lackluster story, boring hotkey mechanics, terrible combat (imo) and entirely too focused on being a AD&D version of WoW.

1 warning to anyone considering it, a comment made by someone in the game... that upon thinking I agree with...

"Take Star Trek Online, strip out the space, take the world gameplay and add in AD&D/Neverwinter lore and npc's.... and you have Neverwinter"

After thinking about it. I had to agree. The look & feel of the gameplay was very much like STO's ground combat section. Considering the dated graphics and the fact the combat plays similar to STO's 'action' ground combat... makes me wonder if Cryptic haven't just used the exact same engine they used in STO (and older games), updated/upgraded it somewhat and then slapped the Neverwinter asset's in... *shrugs*

A master list of the current threads that have discussion and builds for necromancers in PVE.  There may also be alternative builds throughout each thread that relate to the core build.

If other builds that differ highly from the core builds presented in these threads come up, I will post those separately.  If you see anything I have missed let me know and I will add it!!


GUIDES AND SPECS

Reverse Ghost's Hybrid Build
http://www.guildwars...bleed-duration/

Lopez's Guides
http://www.guildwars...e-wvw-fractals/

Chunx's Minion Mastery Guide
http://www.guildwars...-mastery-guide/

Takarazuka's Dagger/Warhorn Powermancer
http://www.guildwars...ocus-and-wells/

Takarazuka's Berserker Power Build
http://www.guildwars...s-cannon-build/

NruJaC's Wraith/Vulnerability Build
http://www.guildwars...romancer-build/

Proseidon's PVE AOE Guide
http://www.guildwars...romancer-guide/

Toxic OnyX's PVP AOE Build
http://en.gw2codex.c...condition-necro

Xyi's Dungeon Build (condition)
http://www.guildwars...-buildin-depth/

Wanderlust's Leveling Condition Build
http://www.guildwars...ion-guidebuild/



THEORYCRAFTING AND DISCUSSION

Death Shroud
http://www.guildwars...-and-solutions/

Bleed Duration
http://www.guildwars...on-field-guide/

Epidemic/Bleed
http://www.guildwars...d-theory-craft/

Power/Condition Setup
http://www.guildwars...and-conditions/

Might Stacking
http://www.guildwars...ower-condition/

Added Reverse Ghost's discussion thread on Death Shroud.

Done! /10char

Making "race change" avaiable/usable only by lvl 80 chars who have completed the story line could partially solve the problem
( i.e. : there's an NPC selling them for X gems + 1 Pact Token) [pact tokens and race change become soul bound for obvious reasons]

About the achievement system i dont really see the problem... the moment you become of another race the previous one stops where it is and the other starts

Some of the guys over on the official forums have a podcast they do every week and discuss necros in wvwvw, spvp, pve, and just general discussion.  Wanted to get some visibility on it here on GW2Guru and feed them some more listeners.  If you have anything you are interested in hearing let me know and I will pass it on or bring it up when I am on!


http://sittingonacou...ategory/gaming/

Lots of bitchin' here. Lets put this in perspective, They could do nothing and you'd ACTUALLY get nothing. They do something, regardless of whether it's any good, it IS something. So quit making this seem like it's "nothing happens" when really this about the fact that you're not happy with the results so far. Could Flame and Frost be better? Absolutely, but so could a lot of things, including the responses in this thread. If you're gonna paint ArenaNet's effort as "nothing happens" then I'm going do the same with all this crying....a bunch of nothing. Show me a good reason why I should read your post. Quit wasting my time!

raspberry jam, on 22 February 2013 - 11:24 AM, said:

Please explain how it is easier to operate as a level 10 player in a level 25 zone than a level 50 player in a level 25 zone, oh wait, you won't because you don't actually make any effort to have a real discussion. It is a simple fact the greater the level difference the greater the challenge to the point of being impossible. You have the choice to go to a higher level area, that is also a fact. I already said you can't pick your difficulty once you hit level 80, hence I said "you can pick your difficulty level during the leveling process". I didn't say it took two weeks to hit max, I said for me it takes about 60 hours total to get to level 80 if I'm taking my time. If you would like to review the posts you will see in-depth explanations on the purpose of levels, but you really shouldn't need that since this isn't the first time you've tried to halt a discussion on this topic with your negativity. Furthermore, you never make any attempt to show why not having levels or having fewer levels is in any way better. So all you do is say "you're wrong, I know better" without ever establishing a single fact and maintain your clear denial.

Do you always have to reply with comments that apply more to yourself? You don't even have the decency to post anything outside of slander in an attempt to frustrate. You should feel bad for actively discouraging discussion with your refusal to actually discuss anything or even acknowledge questions that would further the discussion. It's obvious your only agenda is to be right when you obviously don't have the facts, industry, or world on your side. I really should have just ignored you but I gave you the benefit of the doubt anyone with human decency deserves. That was wrong of me.

So if anyone would actually like to discuss this topic a few questions should be answered:
Why would no or fewer levels be better?
What would the progression in the game look like, what types of progression, how long does it last, and so on?
How would gating work in the game?
How much content would there be and how would the content pacing be structured?

Hyper Hypno Hustler, on 22 February 2013 - 02:56 PM, said:

Time spent alone does not indicate how enjoyable it can be. 300 hours in GW2 is very different than 300 hours in Magika singleplayer.

That's why I choose to look at a category of activities because that category as a whole will generally provide what you want.

So if you want to skip levels why don't you skip levels? There is a very simple and inexpensive way to do it in GW2.

Exactly my point, when you oversimplify it becomes meaningless. Most games in this genre do not operate the way GW2 does. Once you hit max level you do extremely different kinds of things.

That wasn't overthinking, that was using your logic, the "simple" argument. It's rather odd you couldn't pick out your own thinking, seems like you're just polarizing everything I say into "wrong" against your word when I am using your arguments.

GW1 didn't have levels in expansion packs, instead they had things like titles that were more restrictive gating mechanisms. Nothing comes free, removing levels wouldn't create freedom, but that's an argument that is too damaging to address it seems.

It's hard to say I'm arguing against something I think is wrong when I literally say it isn't wrong. What's wrong is not owning up to the decisions you make. What's wrong is whining. What's wrong is not being willing to examine the underlying systems because they're "too deep". Those end up creating problems and solutions that aren't realistic. There's a big difference between, "you are wrong" and "it's wrong to refuse to own up to your choices".

I'm saying people aren't looking at the roots of the issue and not just the surface. People can set whatever goals they want, but they have to own up to them. Setting a goal, sticking to that goal, and whining about the negatives of their choice isn't a problem developers can fix.

Minion, on 19 February 2013 - 10:09 AM, said:

You misunderstand. I understand fully the unofficial restrictions, that was the point of my comment. Shifting the scale would do nothing about that "80 ONLY FULL DPS expletive" situation because you still wouldn't have full stats. Those groups will always require full stats as they always require whatever makes the runs easier. Gear, stats, cons, whatever it is no matter how unnecessary they will demand it.

Are you really going to say there is depth to a system that only acts to remove depth? Did you ever consider there are lessons in levels 2-10? After you've done it 8 times before you better know them, but for new players they are important, that's why Anet dropped in ways to skip those levels entirely and also made levels 2-10 the quickest to get through. Consider levels 2-10 presearing, if you've done presearing before you know what you can skip through. The point of that comment was to identify some methods Anet put in to speed up the process from level 2-20 if that's what you want, while you identify a problem and then refuse to do anything about it. There's a word for people like that.

Your opinion does not make good game design, especially when your opinion only impacts the tutorial process. Not everyone is an expert before they ever log into the game. In fact, by level 80 most players are still not experts at their profession. The retraiting and gating makes you think about what traits are important and how they fit together, at least that's what I and my guild have found.

I was wondering when you would run out of original thoughts and have to defer to personal attacks. I was expecting at least a couple more posts. Oh well. If you were wondering, yes, the game still is interesting after 7 level 80s worth of playing, although playing with friends from time to time doesn't hurt.

raspberry jam, on 19 February 2013 - 10:20 AM, said:

The point is the things you said are pointless without any rationale. The whole world isn't going to take your word on it, especially when it's how nearly everything operates from cradle to grave.

Actually that's exactly how things work. If you haven't noticed books written for children at age 4 are very different than books written for children at age 8, which are very different than books written for children at age 14, which are very different than books written for adults. The alphabet doesn't keep changing all the time, but the vocabulary, level of subtext, and level of referencing and compexity changes quite dramatically. Then you have different subjects or types of reading that have their own requirements. You don't employ the same style of reading for a personal novel in your free time as you do for SAT questions. Children do not learn to read in kindergarten and call it quits, at least not successful ones we would call literate, they continually learn into adulthood and even beyond that. The same is true of GW2, we learn the profession incrementally until we get to level 80 and then we can still learn more if we want, but there is always that general standard of understanding. If you meet someone that you know is literate you can assume their reading level by their age range, you would not expect a first grader to read and understand The Republic, just like you would assume an adult can read more than Duck and Goose Find a Pumpkin. You can assume a level 80 knows more than a level 60, which knows more than a level 40, and so on. They are different ranges of development.

Then perhaps your problem is in what role you choose. I guess the difference is I don't pick "leveler" as my role as I play the game. This is the problem of subjectivity, the things I do are not necessarily the things you do nor are the things I focus on. You just have to be honest with yourself and do what you want, otherwise why are you doing it? Compare GW2 to any game in the genre, would you really be completely free in any of them?

How is this any different than a level-less game? In a level-less game you wander aimlessly until something too difficult kills you. Then you search for a while and eventually abandon the area because the item/enchantment/skill you need is actually on the other side of the map and you would never know it otherwise. Maybe you'll run into it later, maybe not. Or maybe you'll pick the quick path, play for seven minutes and kill the "end boss" and you can drop the game forever.  Both are real situations out of a level-less game, Morrowind. If you can kill the end boss in seven minutes why do anything? If you can walk a straight path to the best gear in ten minutes why play any longer? In a level-less game the motivation is the same as a game with levels and it's different for every player. Is there a place for a game like that? The market says no, but I'd say yes. Would it be an effective MMO? Nope.

I think the fact people are complaining about leveling is perfect proof why leveling up to 80 was essential.

Leveling is there to slow down players and prevent them from skipping too much content in pursuit of higher rewards. If there were no levels it would have been up to the players to go through that content and regulate their own pace and clearly some people are just not able to do that.

As someone who doesnt care about levels and just plays to enjoy the content rather then to get to max level I can tell you that by playing only one zone of each level tier (IE a single 1 ~ 15 zone, a single 15 ~ 30 zone etc...) I hit level 80 by the time I started level 60 content.That means excluding 4x extra level 1 ~ 15 zones, 4x 15 - 30 zones and 3x 30 ~ 60 zones that needless to say would have been enough to level to 80 4 - 5 more times.

Also I am not sure how having 16 zones all level 20 would have changed anything in terms of stated concerns. If you're a player who only care about the highest rewards you're going to play content that has the highest rewards. No amount of balance can ensure every single zone has exactly the same reward level or not. Thats why even though people hated the undead, the majority of the playerbase before FoTM stuck with orr and very few played in Frostgorge sound even though they're all max level zones. Ask yourself this. The Arid Sea zone was a level 20 zone in gw1. How many of you regularly played there?

In my opinion Leveling is a problem when it keeps you from content.
If you played all there is in a level 1 - 15 zone and you still are far off from reach level 15 then level is a problem.

Leveling is a problem when it introduces power creep.
If by the time I reach max level I have no were to discover, no content to do and no reward to be gotten on any zone below my level then thats a problem

Gw2 doesnt have any of these issues but it surely does seem to have players that all they seem interested about is getting the best rewards in the quickest time possible. So personally I vote that level 80 was a good choice anyhow short of gw1 it still has the fastest time to max level compared with any other MMO I have played. Not just that but it also has the most abundant amount of content per level by far.

I'd like to ask him why he likes to troll the forums so much.

I'll do some quick testing tonight to see if the bleeds from my scepter, specifically the barbed precision procs benefit from the sigil of agony, and I'll let you know one way or the other.  I'll also provide some more specifics on the build I'm currently using that perhaps you could provide some feedback on, since you seem knowledgable of the class.  Also anyone else please leave feedback as well.  Personally I think my build will allow you to do the most amount of bleed damage without using the epidemic trick after using AOE bleeds to double stack on the focus target. Not to be confused with damage per tick.

Scepter / Dagger is for mid-range Condition Damage and has some defensive options as well
You pretty much want this if you play a condition-based necro
Dagger Offhand is really the best option here I think, deathly swarm is simply awesome with corruption utilities

Dagger / Warhorn is the in-your-face power-based melee and lifesteal
The most damaging and fasted hitting auto-attack the necro has and a pretty decent melee option
I can see arguments for both another dagger offhand (condition control & blind, weakness) as well as Focus (12 vulnerability stack in one shot, chill), but I usually use the warhorn when I go melee, mainly because of the locust swarm

Axe / Focus is mid-to-close range power-based damage and lots of vulnerability
Axe is regarded to be the weakest weapon afaik, I haven't played enough with it enough, but it felt pretty bad whenever i tried it
Not sure about the other offhands here, Focus makes sense because of the extra vulnerability stacks

Staff is a long range jack-of-all-trades weapon, it deals AoE damage, the marks deal okay power damage, you have an AoE bleed on a relatively short cooldown, have chill and fear for control purposes, AoE regeneration and condition transfer...
I think it's a pretty good secondary weapon for most specs, especially in group scenarios. And of course the only 1200 range option. The auto-attack is the main downside, dreadflully slow and makes a really annoying sound

Protoss, on 13 February 2013 - 06:15 PM, said:

This is a pretty simple situation. Some people like tiers some people dont. Some people like to work hard to get better gear, some people dont. Gw2 is designed to serve both camps. I am not even going so far as exotic, a rare set is extremely easy to get. It will cost you less then 1g which at max level you can easily make in 1 hr of game time. Everyone is free to stop there.Just cause a tier is there it doesnt mean you have to have it. If you dont find it enjoyable working towards getting an exotic set or an ascended set then simply dont do it, it will not make a difference. You said you enjoy mostly going around killing stuff and if anything doing that with a rare set instead of exotic will make such an activity more pleasurable because even using a rare set the game is simply too easy. Not just that but after a while of playing the game the way you enjoy you'll realise you can afford a full exotic set. Later on if Anet do in fact make ascended gear aquireable in every way like exotic gear is aquireable you'll find you can afford that too. You'll get your full ascended gear without all the strife you're making yourself go through to get something you neither want or need.