The Importance of Items

There are several factors that go into making a successful character in GW. And, by successful, I'm talking about being able to go into any PvE and PvP map with a reasonable chance of coming back out victorious, of course. That means you want your character "maxed" in several aspects. You'll need the levels, the skills, and the equipment to excel. Obviously, you want to be at the highest level, 20. You want to have more than just the starting skills, you want to have acquired good skills along the way. You want a suit of good armor, that lv20 set, so you'll need the wealth to acquire that, too. But you'll need more equipment beyond that armor and that's something that many people seem to overlook. A character does not stop once they've hit level 20 and they've got the right skills. Items are extremely important to a character because they'll give your character a marked advantage.

First, when dealing with armor there's the issue of runes.

To truly be competitive you're going to want a Superior Vigor rune for that extra 53 health. Anyone else is playing already behind in any damage race It's not just somethign nice to have, it's almost a requirement by this point.

There are also attribute runes to gather as well. You have five slots in your armor for runes and you're not likely to have more than four attributes to raise from your primary. There's no reason not to have at least a minor rune for each of those attributes that you've decided to raise. And that's alongside the bonus of your lv20 headgear to an attribute as well. A character with runes is gaining free attribute points making them noticably stronger than a character without.

Consider, if you will, the issue of Major and Superior ruens. A lot of players pass up these runes because of the costs involved. However, for what you gain, they're really pretty good. They're best on characters that aren't expecting to take a lot of damage - meaning that Monks, who'll be targeted eventually, and Warriors, who might want to play a tank to absorb damage - the hit to health is a bit much. But other characters are out of the line of fire, for the most part, except when their team's are losing. Getting that extra push to DPS or duration or another effect becomes more tolerable ifyou're a Ranger or an Elementalist or a Mesmer or a Necromancer. But it becomes even more desirable when you ponder the effects of those +2 and +3 runes, not on the attribute they're pushing upwards but on a character's other attributes. Take a Ranger who's running a lot of bow attacks. They'll want their Marksmanship and Expertise as high as possible. 12/12 for preference. Leaving them 6 measly AP to raise another attribute to the maximum of 3. With minor runes and a mask that can be a 14/13/3 build. 15 or 16 with the other runes.

However, rather than pushing their attributes to that height, they can use them to approach their target attribute rank. 12 is a perfectly fine maximum which will let them be effective against other characters, pushing it past that starts to suffer from diminishing returns. However, a character could start with a build of 11/10/10 and then use their bonus AP from armor to push that to 12(11+1)/12(11+1)/10. That's 7 bonus ranks over the caharacter who's spent their AP n being 12/12/3. That's a 56 AP swing that the second character is using to fuel another attribute past a measly 3 and into a very respectable 10. That Ranger can now not just splash another attribute but seriously consider that attribute. A Ranger/Elementalist can take Fire to add a powerful Conjure Fire. A Ranger/Monk can take Healing to act as a back up healer. A Ranger/Mesmer can take Dominion to use Power Spike and Block alongside Savage Shot and Debilitating Shot. Those runes have bouth the character a lot more options and diversity in their skill selection and in the roles they can adopt in a party. Minor and Superior runes can work the same way, a character can take an attribute from 9 or even 8 to the maximum with runes and headgear, for example, freeing up even more AP to use elsewhere. Even if a character is a Mesmer or a Necromancer and might not prefer to have maxed out attributes, runes help by letting them hit sweet spots in their progression while giving them more AP to spend elsewhere.

Characters that have spent the time or money to acquire runes are more diverse and flexible than characters that haven't. And with that flexiblity is an advantage in and of itself.

Then, there's the issue of items.

A sword War is gong to want the best sword to swing. They're not going to get very far if they're still using that sword they found as they were heading through the Shiverpeaks by the time they're ready for the Tombs. They want to squeeze every bit of damage out of it that they can. And they're going to want the most favorable modifiers on that sword as well. A Warrior/Elementalist, for example, is going to want the modifiers that add to their enchantment length so their Conjure last as bit longer or increase their attack speed so they get more benefit out of it and maybe even a shield that gives a +1 to Fire Magic when they cast Conjure Fire, too. There are plenty of modifiers around, though, and those modifiers can be extremely useful even to characters who don't plan to use a weapon very often. Foci and wands have modifiers, too, and casters will greatly benefit from finding the right ones for their build.

The trick, though, is finding those modifiers which are spawned randomly on weapons as they drop. For that Warrior/Elementalist, finding the +duration mod might be a snap. Finding the +speed mod pretty easy, too. But finding them both on the same weapon? That can be a bit of a hassle. It's going to take the time to kill enough critters to get that best weapon or a lot of gold to go out and buy it from someone else. But those modifiers, like a +1/-1 energy gaining axe, can be a marked advantage and one that those looking for every edge they can find will need to have to at least stay competitive with those who do.

Two characters, one with an unadorned set of lv20 armor and a mediocre weapon and another studded with runes and a maxed damage weapon with the best mods otherwise having the same build, which one has the advantage? It's the character that's tweaked up, of course, and it's more than just a slight advantage. It's an advantage that gives them a much better chance of wining. So, those characters looking to compete with the best are going to have to have that gear, aren't they?

And that's to say nothing of acquiring multiple weapons to swap between, multiple armors to swap runes, mixing and matching armor sets for the best benefit, and all the other tricks and advantages that can be teased out of your inventory.

In my experience, starting with a level 20 character, you can get up to a decent spec in two or three days of reasonably serious play. However, there are some really good items out there, which would probably take quite a long time of farming to acquire. I get the feeling the range of item power should be narrowed a little bit. The thing is that due to the way items are created from several random factors, if you get really lucky you can get something really nice - it's just that you have to roll the dice many many times to get the perfect combination.

Another factor is how knowledgeable you are about farming. It's not too hard to learn how to farm Zealots for weapons and armor drops I guess, but if you never happen to twig to that, you will be at a disadvantage. When it comes to farming for runes and materials, there are ways to really rip through the Charr if you spend long enough figuring it out. I think that sort of knowledge is going to remain more rare. (And no I won't post all my tricks here because I think it probably needs nerfing - it's just a matter of when the devs will take action on it.)

I think that a lot of people don't pay nearly enough attention to items. Sure, the company line is that you win or lose based upon skill selections and your own skill with the game, but that doesn't match up with what's in game right now. Items matter. If you're a Warrior or Ranger, your ability to deal damage is intimately tied to your weapon, and if you don't have a good one you just aren't going to be effective. We're not just talking max damage weapons here - getting a weapon with the maximum possible base damage is just a starting point, if you can't get one of those don't even bother trying to play with the big boys.

There are rare weapon modifiers that give you +28% damage. There's a weapon modifier that gives you +1 energy per hit with a negligible drawback. There are Shield and Focus modifiers that can give you +1 to a skill of your choice, great defensive bonuses, or even quick recovery from dazed. There are weapon upgrades, that for now pretty much have to spawn in place, that increase your attack speed or lengthen your enchantments or increase your armor level across the board.

Good items don't just make characters more powerful, they open up even more options that characters without the best items can't even consider. Runes and +attribute or +skill items either make a focused character even stronger, or allow him to spread his attribute points out more, allowing them to mix and match from a wider assortment of skills. They can affect skill valuations by piling up energy, energy regen, and other raw resources, skewing the balance between different skill types - energy costs stop being prohibitive when you have better energy regeneration. Modifiers like quick recovery from Dazed can allow you to ignore skills that would otherwise cripple you. There's a dance between attributes, skills, and items, and any change to one affects how you view the others.

If you think you're competitive without access to these items, you're living in a dream world. You need the right sword for your build just as badly as you need the right skills to use with it, and the attributes to pump up those skills.

Which brings us to everyone's favorite set of topics - pharming, bots, and cash markets.

The best items in the game are rares - that should be obvious, since rares spawn with multiple base weapon modifiers, including a set that are only available on rares. To acquire these rares, you need to play the PvE missions that grant them. A lot. You can easily play the 'right' area for finding your rare a thousand times without it dropping. Clearly, your patience is going to run out long before you find the items you need.

Which is the entire basis of the botting and cash economy.

Guild Wars is particularly succeptable to botting and cash markets because it's a PvP game. If all you were doing was playing PvE, top weapons would be a nice bonus, but not neccessary since the challenges you're facing are static. But in PvP, playing a sub-optimal character is just not an option if you're hoping to succeed. You need to be on equal footing, which means having equal access to equipment...which means doing what it takes to acquire said top items.

Item power is an issue, but item availability is a *huge* issue. The goal of the game, as stated, is to create an environment where success or failure is a function of player skill. Unfortunately, as things currently stand, the Guild Wars item system flies in the face of that. While skills can be acquired in several different ways, and attributes and levels come quickly, items are a horrendous grind. Either you choose to grind, you choose to run a bot, you choose to buy items, or you choose to lose. The game does not have to be this way, and I hope that this particular issue is addressed before release.

Peace,
-CxE

Personally, I don't see the availability of runes as a pressing issue. They will tip the balance in high lvl PvP, however, being discrete units, they're something that are easy for the devs to control the flow of into the economy. I expect 2-3 weeks into retail to have no problems picking up a superior vigor rune at a high, but reasonable price. Of course, a rune trader would be a godsend .

What concerns me more is high lvl ranes with multiple mods. The time required to farm for the mods you want on a weapon go up exponentially with the number of mods you want on it. You're also less likely to be able to trade for a weapon with the mods you're after, as people are more likely to salavage a weapon when it doesn't have the mods they want, so there will be a smaller flow of these items into the market. I'd like to see all weapon mods available via upgrades components, with the components salavaged from items that spawn with those mods.

This way, to get the weapon you're after, you'll only need to find a good damage base item, then trade or salavage the mod components you want for it. It'll save players a lot of frustration.

As far as fixing the problem, Pharalon basically summed it up perfectly.

Runes are important and expensive, but they're going to be available. Sure you're going to have problems finding a vigor rune during a 3 day BWE, but a few weeks into retail people will start finding extras and be willing to unload them, for the right offer. As a single unit, individual runes are fairly common commodities that you should see in town regularly.

The same can be said of upgrade components - they pop up in salvage fairly frequently, and while you might have to pay a bit for a +20% enchantment duration upgrade you can certainly find them.

The problem is with modifiers that have to spawn with the item. Finding a top, 15-22 damage sword takes a bit of time, but it's not too hard. Finding a 15-22 damage sword with the modifier you want? A whole lot harder. Finding a 15-22 sword with the two mods that compliment your character? Damn near impossible.

Assuming that there were 20 mods, you'd have to go through the following number of rare swords to get the one you want:

Zero mods - 1 sword
One mod - 20 swords
Two mods - 190 swords
Three mods - 1,140 swords

Oh, and of course, there are a whole lot more than 20 mods in the game. As it stands, you're looking at spending hundreds of hours trying to find the weapon you want - and assuming that there are other like-minded people out there, the secondary market value of such a weapon would be phenomenal.

Arena.net got it right the first time - upgrades are the way to go. They get away from the whole power law problem, allowing people to assemble the weapon that they want through trade, instead of having to find the whole package in one shot. It allows you to keep the diversity of weapons in the game, which is desirable, without introducing serious access problems. Rare item modifiers just lead to scarcity, pharming, botting, and ultimately imbalance between the haves and have nots. Item upgrades allow each player to assemble their weapon from parts quickly and efficiently. The choice is clear.

Peace,
-CxE

I've never had troubles finding cool stuff during the events. I imagine in retail it'll be a lot easier. By the time you hit 20 you'll probably have all the items you need to compete, seeing as how from 15-20 I almost have all the items I need. When farming for mods/rares you can usually find 10+ in an hour, 1 or 2 really nice ones you can give to guild mates and what not.

I think this isn't too far away from what Anet was going for in the first place. Most items with lots of mods will spawn with a disadvantage (do they all work that way?) so in most cases you can find an item that is "right" for your build ,but it is not strictly overpowered. To find the "perfect" item might take nearly forever, but is that really so bad? After all, whats the difference between a great and a perfect item in GW? Not much.

Am I the only person who uses only Minors? Somehow the argument of.. "if you use a major, it balances with a superior vigor" doesn't work with me... it may balance out, but I would have more health, and your +1 or 2 more to your attribute (whether it be +10 (or a little more) damage to your skill, or that extra pip of degen (Life Siphon for example), it, more often than not, would just be better to use a Minor.

As for swords, and how good your items are. The prefixes/suffixes/modifiers are quite subtle at the moment, so it's not like they will have a devastating effect and you'll stomp someone in PvP just because your sword has +% IAS at the hit of Damage %

Say you find a sword that reduces your attack speed by 10% (might go higher, not sure) and gives you +1 energy each hit. How is that subtle? Couple that with something like frenzy and you attack once every .75 seconds and get one energy everytime that happens. That opens whole new doors for warriors to use energy intensive attacks.

But does this item exist?

Perhaps, perhaps not. But something like it does. Consider, if you will, evern the by now infamous +1 energy on a hit, -1 energy regeneration sword. That sounds like a nasty penalty, doesn't it? For a war, you're halving the energy you'll get in order to get that energy bonus. Pass?

No way in hell. You grab that +1/-1 sword and run with it. Look at these weapon speeds : Swords - 1.33 seconds, Axes - 1.33 seconds, Hammers - 1.75 seconds. And then consider that a pip of energy is 1 point of energy every 3 seconds. That means that if you can put your character in a situation where they can swing away with that +1/-1 sword they'll be getting one point of energy every 1.33 seconds. In the 3 seconds it would take that lost pip to work, you'd get about 2.25 energy (Hammers are worse, but still better). It the 9 seconds you'd get 3 energy with a pip, you'd get 6.8 energy. In 30 seconds instead of 10 energy you'll have 22.5. The upshot is rather than halving your energy you've more than doubled it. Even when you consider that the actual energy you'd gain is *only* 1.25 (2.25 minus the pip's 1) every 3 seconds, you're coming out ahead. Slap on Flurry with that en sword and, well, you get the picture...

All that -1 pip penalty is doing is to limit how sickly effective your weapon is. It's nt an actual penalty at all because it doesn't make you any worse than you'd be without it. Are there weapons like that in the game right now? I can't say. But if there are such weapons is it not a huge advantage to the character holding them?

I mean I didn't know about this before hand but when I heard that there were focuses available with Quick Recovery vs. Dazed, I was nearly dazed. That's just insane, no matter how effective it is. Dazed is one of the biggest things you fear as a caster. It will shut you down completely if you get hit by it. If that Quick Recovery makes Dazed fall away 50% faster, 25% faster, even 10% faster, it's still worth whatever it takes to get (In all likelihood it's a lot faster, based on the publically known knowledge of what things such as Quick Recovery from Burning or Quick Skill Recharge are like). That's not just something nice for a caster to have, it's all but essential. A caster playing with a focus with that mod is a lot less vulnerable to the many anti-caster Rangers out there. That's an advantage a caster shouldn't give up if they're considering playing at the highest level.

I agree with you 100% , it is the very thing i do....

The following sword exists:

15-22 damage
+26% damage per hit
+1 energy per hit
-7 armor when attacking
-10% criticals

You can customize it, too, making it effectively a +46% damage weapon. Plus upgrades, such as +attack speed, +20% enchantment duration, or just a simple +30 health.

A top rare sword does 20% more damage than a normal 'perfect' sword, plus it doubles your energy regeneration. As Saus mentioned, there are foci with mods like quick recovery from dazed that are rare enough that even testers aren't aware of their existence. Bonuses like these aren't just minor perks, they win games on their own. If you want to play at the highest level, you need them, and with the current item system that just isn't going to happen.

Peace,
-CxE

Would that be SOO much better than just a normal sword.. ? Thats' why it's subtle..

It looks nice at first, but don't swords routinely drop with 25~26 max dmg, and a bit higher min dmg? I've seen a lot of 17-25, 18-25, 19-26 in the past, and I wasn't even trying to hunt for items (just doing missions).

15-22 + 46% = 22-32
19-26 + 20% = 23-31

Is -7 armour and -10% crits worth +1 energy? Well depends on your opinion, but I think it's balanced either way.

Nope, 15-22 is the highest base damage you'll find on a sword now.


Which, in its own way, tells all of us just how highly we should value your opinion.

Peace,
-CxE

That sword is the nastiest I've seen - but I heard damage mods have been capped now at 15% (not sure if that is true though), and I have never seen a +energy on hit sword that didn't have the -energy regen drawback. Things do get tweaked.

I still don't see the problem, it's not like items like that are rare/hard to get. EVery hour I played I was getting nice stuff like that, it's all trivial in PvP, as it's not enough to make or break you. PvP isn't supposed to be 100% balanced all the time, it's not fun like that, the little percentage difference items make, makes things interesting.

If my guild in 48 hours can be polluted with runes, items, manu parts, and gold, to the point where we're giving it away or just dumping it on the ground to make room for more nice items, there's not a whole lot to worry about. I think at one point me and a friend together had about 50 upgrade components for weapons. That sword you posted, isn't rare, just occasional. Black dye is rare, for every black dye I've found, I've been dropped about 5,000 swords/bows/hammers like that.

Hopefully they have changed those two mods. Obviously you can't comment, but they were in the game as of the last BWE - I've had both of them in hand myself.

Even the -energy regen drawback isn't enough for the +1 energy per hit weapon, though. Those things kick out so much energy, I don't see how you can even call yourself competitive if you don't have one.


Yeah, it's only like one spawns every ten thousand game hours or so. They're so common that alpha testers are running bots trying to get decent items in reasonable timeframes. Not a problem. At all.


Yes, actually, it is. You don't get two real mods on non-rare weapons.


You know, spreading misinformation like that just makes discussions like this difficult. If you really have found 5000 max damage, rare weapons with two good rare modifiers on them and no junky upgrades gunking them up for every black dye you have found, I retract that statement, but in all likelihood you're just making stuff up and doing everyone a disservice.

Peace,
-CxE

Max damage, max stat...? So? It makes little difference in the outcome of a 8 on 8. In all the hours I've put into GW, not once has the so called issue of "items" ever entered my head. I dunno, maybe it's from those times I went to tombs at level 15 with default everything and still compete and won on teams with other level 15's, or the fact that every PvP match I've ever lost was directly related to a mistake I saw happening as it unfold, and not because my teammates didn't have good items. I don't see the minor difference of an item as a big deal, but if you're looking for a scapegoat for your PvP losses then by all means, use weapon stats.