Difference between gold and purple

Weapon requirement doesn't affect Critical Hit chance Etsuko, a Character's Weapon Attribute does. All the weapon requirement on an item does is say at what number the weapon stops using a 1-X damage range and starts using its normal damage range.

ie:
Scythe that does max damage and is req 9

Scythe Mastery of 2: Will do 1-8 damage.
Scythe Mastery of 8: Will do 2-13 damage.
Scythe Mastery of 9 (gives weapon its normal damage range, although it is reduced by a % up until 12): 7-45 damage.
Scythe Mastery of 12: (the weapon at this # finally does 100% of its actual damage) 9-58
Scythe Mastery of 14: (does more than 100% damage range) 10-62

(includes crits)

Weapon Attributes (_______ Mastery, Marksmanship) give you +1.44% to crit per point.

higher crit rate from golden weapon...
omg^^

are you kidding me, gold or purple or blue as long as inscriptable the only thing matters is if max damage and the req

My 2 cents:

When GW was new, it was the general scheme of things that the stats of weapons, etc., generally improved as you went from white to blue to purple to gold. That was also back in the day before Inscriptions, so the inherent mods on weapons were not mod-able.
In those days, purple weapons would generally speaking have a higher requirement or have a much less than max inherent mod, such as 13^50 or HCT 8%, etc.. Gold weapons would have a lower requirement and would have max or near max inherent mods, such as 14-15^50 or HCT 9%-10%.
Purple weapons would also usually have crappier prefix and suffix mods mods on them, but of course, they could always be changed.

Any way, somewhere along the way, during all the updates, changes to chests, and inscriptions, etc., NCsoft (or whoever) futzd around with the stats on weapons so much, that the distinction in weapon color is now almost meaningless in practical terms. I think they basically gave up trying to "fix" it - we will have to wait and see if GW2 can straighten it all out.
(My warrior, for example, has a blue armor 16 Ebonhand Aegis with health+60 (enchanted) and dmg-2 (enchanted) - just as good as any shield).

People still like gold weapons best because they are (supposedly) rarer, but I've had many times when I've gotten a req 9 purple drop and a req13 gold during the same run.

So, in answer to the OP's question - there is no difference, performance-wise, between a purple (or blue) and gold weapon of equal stats other than text color. As someone pointed out, there are a few weapon skins that change from blue to purple to gold - the Ancient Scythe comes to mind.
http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ancient_Scythe

Mr Webster will have an hard work explaining me the cheerfullness of this statement:
So what players determine is retarded... it seems to me offensive, but maybe my lack of knowledge of the english language (i'm italian) speaks for me.
Agree on ugly wammos in chaos gloves/fow but besides that i have my opinion on "living" GW that's not the same of yours.
I'll stop replying on this line, we're transforming this thread into a flame between us and I want to apologize with the OP for that, with the other readers, and with u too (if Websters explaining me the cheerfullness ofyour statement quoted above )
Cheers!

I think he was trying to say that he is a player and, therefore, retarded. Or it could be that he missed that logical extension of his idea.

I buy gold weapons because they are easier to sell if I decide that I don't want it anymore, want something else, etc. And thats the same reason I prefer inscribable weapons over ones that can't be inscribed and I would pay more money for an inscribable gold then a blue or purple with the exact same stats (inscribable or not.) Am I retarded for thinking this?

colour indicates rarity and the % chance to find good stats/mods on these weaps

blue > purple > gold

market is supply/demand

back in proph days...
teh rarer an item, generally the better teh stats
so theres less supply, and more demand
pumpin up teh cost


golds were usually -always- better than purps
but teh keyword is being a "% chance" to be better upon finding it

then, nf came along and introduced the inscription system
allowing blues and purples to be perfectly inscribed jus the same as golds

but golds r indeed still more rare, and still have a better % chance drop wit better stats/mods
but u r able to mod up ur purple to become jus as good of a weapon as a gold now

but still, even if they can have same stats...
golds -should- be more expensive than purples still

In the past it was clear and obvious - purples were worse than golds as they couldn't ever get all max stats.

But then came the terrible joke that was the inscription system, badly designed in so many areas, one of them being making every random purple (and most blues) inherently perfect - just as good as the golds, possible to be modded into absolute perfection. The only difference is that the golds can actually drop with max mods on them occassionally, purples/blues need to have them all added; this difference is irrelevant though.

So you can have identical items with different colors after modding and the gold version will be worth more because the masses believe that gold=the best, gold=more rare=more prestigeous. There are many exceptions, cases where gold isn't necessarily the most rare. Hardcore HM solo farmers can farm more golds than purples or even blues. Purple Staffs with all max base stats are at least 100x (maybe even 500x) more rare than identical gold ones. Certain skins have different rates at which they appear in different rarities (or not appear at all at some)...


Oh, the thing with lower req. and better crit chances - its a complete BS. The only thing that matters with weapons requirement is whether you meet the req or not. If you run 14 Swordsmanship a req.13 sword will perform identically to a req.7 one with same stats.
Crit chances are Very easy to test - just take 2 weapons and go hit some barrels in Isle of Nameless.

Don't forget, gold weapons give you +1 to wisdom when you id them.. that's why I'd rather get a gold than a purple. Other than that, no difference at all.

If the theory of higher chance of critcal hit was true with a lower req weapon (q7-8), i would highly doubt that you would see pvpers all over them due to their rarity as they have been phased out of the game and becuse of this pvpers dont actively seek them because they can't be bothered with the effort of finding something that rare and so they are happy to settle for req9 weapons which i myself as a pvper do. So to say directly that people buy low req weapons based PURELY on rarity and not possibly on theory that there is no evidence against or for is wrong.

In prophecies and factions, gold > purple because purple can't have max inherent dmg mods. In nightfall and eotn, gold = purple = blue, if inscriptable and same dmg & req.

PvPers were all over PvE items in Prophecies/Factions days when there was a significant disparity between PvE and PvP items. If not you, then others would go through the effort for the advantage. Req 8s you can find for sale fairly easily, and if you had the money it wouldn't be too hard to get a req 7 in time.

Lower requirements giving any sort of advantage was shown to be false ages ago. It's not hard to test yourself.

Thanks for the replies everyone.

Kinda OT but I picked up a drop yesterday from a Losaru Lifeband. It was his armor and it was gold. It was al36 and the only attribute that it had was Health +10. Now the weird thing was that the +10 health was intrinsic (meaning I couldn't pull it off, expert salvage just showed crafting items). Seemed strange. I got 160 gold from a merchant for it. I'm hoping that was not a mistake.

Gold items are "rarer." The problem is loot scaling. Since people solo farm and gold items are excempt from loot scaling, often times farmers will get MORE gold items then they will purple (since golds do not drop 8 times [ie, number of pary member] less then purple items).

Edit: No Altfire, that was not a mistake. You are in phrophecies, so your weapons are non-inscrable, and most of the mods on an item can't be changed/salvaged off. You are still pretty early in the game, so you won't be getting any item that is valuable for a while. Gold items in early level areas are not max-stats.

since the inception of factions and titles, the major difference is that Gold weapons count towards a title and others don't.

side point, and i know its been said before though, but ANET if we spend 1500 for a lockpick and use it in HM on chests, the item should ALWAYS be gold, otherwise its just a plain rip off. at least that's my humble op.

It was a salvage item containing a Rune of Vitae. You should have been able to take the Vitae off with an Expert Salvage Kit.

Nope.
That was why it seemed odd to me, cause when I ran the expert kit on it, it just showed crafting materials and not rune or insignia and I thought there should be one.

the difference is that all things purple should be delated for they serve no purpose whatsover..including runes!

Now that's just silly.