There are some really nice skins for rods and foci in GW but for some reason the ArenaNet developers keep screwing us over by pinning them all to primary attributes. Even when they are compatible with secondary attributes, there is usually only a ranger of four attribute specific skins available and a bunch of general use skins to choose from unless you go into the realm of the woefully unacceptably modded greens.
Look at some of the nicer wand skins in the game - the Obsidian Rod, Serpentine Rod, Dead Scepter, Tiger Rod, (in the form of Mallyx items) etc. While we can have these drop in the game, we can't get them outside of primary attributes. Almost every player who uses a wand and focus set is going to use them as a 40/40 set - something you wouldn't want for primary attribute spells. Even items which drop with secondary attributes are near impossible to find - like the Wayward Wand (apparently un-inscribable versions can come with secondary attributes but good luck finding a 20/20 one), Celestial Scepter, Zodiac Wand etc. I was running the Deep many times and it got depressing merching such nice skins because no-one wants a wand or focus in a primary attribute.
The really depressing thing is there are a lot of skins which are simply unavailable to PvE outside of green drops and in many cases, exclusive to PvP rewards; this goes for both caster and martial items. To add insult to injury, a PvP item isn't restricted to attributes - they can have any caster skin in any attribute they want - not only breaking the PvE rules for inter-profession restrictions, but also allowing typically necromancer skins with mesmer attributes and vice versa. Not only can they have a Dead Sceptre with a curses attribute, they can have it with a healing prayers attribute if they want. PvE players are forever limited to a nice looking skin with a soul reaping attribute.
In a game where people are refusing to do certain dungeons or elite missions because the rewards are simply not worth it (Factions Elite missions are pretty underwhelming, when was the last time people were breaking down the door to do Vloxen Excavations to get those... rare skins from the chest, the Tiger Rod isn't available as a normal drop, how hard is it to add it to the Mallyx chest or random chests in DoA etc). There are so many green-specific, PvP specific, or pointlessly attribute specific wands and foci in the game and there is a huge opportunity for ArenaNet to utilise already existing game mechanics and content to make available these rare (and not so rare) items available to the players.
Hell, it would be a huge boon to Zaishen Quests (most of which are PvE specific and struggle to maintain player interest after equipment bags are in the market) if all they did was create a special "Zaishen PvE" item which acted like a PvP weapon. Allowing players to use Z Coins to access rarer/unique skins (like players can do with stat limited /bonus weapons or their PvP toons) would be a huge step in the right direction. A way to earn your weapons through normal PvE play (instead of basically being forced to buy them using the woefully inept trading system the game has in place seeing as drops are hard enough to come by as usable, let alone in the attribute and skin you want in the first place) would be great for casual players who want a guaranteed path of access to even common items (which normally force you to go to external auction sites or spam Kamadam hoping someone didn't merch it) without resorting to grinding out the same dungeons over and over.
The game has a lot of underutilised content, both in game rewards (attribute specific skins, green specific skins, Z Coin reward selections) and in terms of gameplay (Z Quests are great but the reward range is very specific and increasingly irrelevant to most people, it also lacks proportion - most items of any relevance are incredibly expensive, everything on the lower end is easily gotten by killing a few raptors, many dungeons suffer from poor rewards or a minute selection of rare skins - with so many impossible to access skins in the game, it should be easy to add them to the loot tables, the same with elite missions, how about adding a vanquish chest with map specific chest rewards to prevent people from only running easy to vanquish zones and give some range to the items rewarded - less flashy items like an inscribable curses attribute Deadly Cesta could be dropped from a vanquish chest for Sunqua Vale, rarer skins like the Dead Scepter with death magic or curses requirement might require a vanquish of areas in the desolation etc). Why can't we shake up the PvE loot system (particularly for caster gear, but there are a lot of nice martial items which are PvP exclusive) and really breath some life into the collector's market by removing restrictions allowing access to underutilised skins?
t
o not want to derail on old topic "Insc weapons are worst thing in GW cuz all noob can have goos stats/no they're the best exactely for that", but i fear we're going to hit it very soon down this route in discussion.
