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I've found four types of infusions that go in offensive and defensive slots in ascended equipment:

  • Basic ones, bought with laurels, that grant a +4 bonus to an attribute.
  • Fine ones, made from a lot of tier 6 materials, granting +5 to an attribute and +5 Agony Resistance
  • WvW ones, bought with laurels and badges of honour, granting +5 to an attribute and a 1% bonus against WvW NPCs.
  • Simple ones, bought with Fractal Relics and granting +5 Agony Resistance.

+5 to a single attribute is next to nothing compared to the equipment's inherent stats. Simple infusions are the only one that look useful to me. Eventually replacing those with fine ones, while certainly an upgrade, seems hardly worth the effort. So what's the deal here?

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Non-agony Infusions are used to increase your non-agony attributes, which is the primary benefit of using Ascended equipment instead of Exotic equipment, in general.

Ascended equipment is used in more places than just Fractals, but Agony Resistance has no use at all outside of Fractals. So, for example, putting Agony Resistance on Ascended equipment and then fighting in World vs. World would completely waste that Infusion slot.

As for the value of +5 extra stats, that tends to be an issue of personal preference. If you only intend to use your Ascended equipment in Fractals, then you won't see much benefit to min-maxing your stats. Shaving a few seconds off of a boss kill is hardly noticeable, which is why most PvE players doing Fractals opt to simply use the +5 Agony Resistance Infusions.

However, in WvW, having more health or power than your opponent can decide an encounter. The difference between death and survival could very well be the extra +400 health or +40 toughness you get from all of your WvW Infusions. Using Ascended equipment is already a step towards min-maxing and using proper Infusions is simply another step down that same road.

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  • Well-said. As a necromancer, vitality matters more than other classes because our Life Force pool is increased by vitality. Who knows how many times I've been running from a battle with 250 health left? :} And while +30 power may not sound like much, remember you also crit off that power, so it is worth something in the end.
    – Vael Victus
    Commented Feb 6, 2015 at 20:46
  • Well, that was oddly condescending, but it answers my question. As I said, it's not the minor bonus itself that bothers me, it's the disproportionate amount of effort to get that bonus.
    – Pvt. Grichmann
    Commented Feb 7, 2015 at 16:34
  • @Pvt.Grichmann I altered the tone based on your feedback. As for the "disproportionate amount of effort," that depends on how much you want to min-max. Even Ascended gear is "disproportionate" in terms of the increase in attributes versus the cost compared to Exotic gear. You just choose where to, personally, draw the line.
    – KOVIKO
    Commented Aug 20, 2015 at 21:59

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