Guild Wars 2

There’s gotta be something I’m missing from this line of thought. Scrap/section prices look like this.

Jute: 1s19c
Rawhide: 31c

Wool: 4s29c
Thin: 64c

Cotton: 2s84c
Coarse: 1s84c

Linen: 5s88c
Rugged: 3s52c

Silk: 2s10c
Thick: 20c

Gossamer: 3s40c
Hardened: 38c

I can make absolutely no sense out of this. Cloth is used for light armor, which is used by 3 jobs. Leather is used for medium armor, which is used by 3 jobs. Both are only obtainable by salvaging and bags, not from resource nodes. Cloth is used for for insignias, but it’s not really the cloth components that make insignias valuable, certainly not enough to justify such a drastic difference.

So what gives? Why is the demand for cloth so much stronger than the demand for leather when they’re uses and obtainability are reasonably similar?

It has to do with the fact that cloth is used in all ascended armor recipes. Which is a pretty big design flaw because it makes crafting ascended armor for light classes much more expensive. For example, the ascended chest piece for light class is 27 gold more expensive to craft than the chest piece for a heavy class.

Cloth is used by all armor crafting disciplines, not just for tailoring.

Also the reason why it’s high is because of damask, which is used in a LOT of things. All the ascended armor uses it, and some back pieces as well. In comparison, the ascended leather is used on medium ascended only (and ascended back pieces that require 15 types).

You can compare the number of recipes yourself:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bolt_of_Damask
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Elonian_Leather_Square

IMO heavy armor should require leather + ingots instead, since that makes more sense.

That…makes way too much sense. I haven’t done medium or heavy ascended sets yet, but I most certainly failed to consider ascended level insignias when I was considering all the things. Well then! Thanks for helping me clear that up.

Also damask requires 300 silk while ascended leather only needs 150 thick leather.

I have also the feeling that there are way more mobs that drop leather than salvageable cloth stuff.

Shifu.4321:

Cloth is used by all armor crafting disciplines, not just for tailoring.

Also the reason why it’s high is because of damask, which is used in a LOT of things. All the ascended armor uses it, and some back pieces as well. In comparison, the ascended leather is used on medium ascended only (and ascended back pieces that require 15 types).

You can compare the number of recipes yourself:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bolt_of_Damask
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Elonian_Leather_Square

IMO heavy armor should require leather + ingots instead, since that makes more sense.

I’d agree about the heavy armor…

But Ascended insignias still require 3 Bolts of Damask each… Which is 3 per piece of Ascended armor.

By comparison, most medium or heavy armor “linings” only need 1 Damask (except for head armor which needs 2).

I don’t think Ascended crafting was all that well thought out aside from “WE NEED A MASSIVE MATERIAL SINK!”

Thala.2801:

So what gives? Why is the demand for cloth so much stronger than the demand for leather when they’re uses and obtainability are reasonably similar?

John Smith changed the recipe for silk from 2 scraps to 3 scraps.

Because leather is far mor common than cloth. Ive sold over 1000 peices of t5 leather (hard leather?) That ive aquired in a matter of a couple of weeks. Ive gotton no where near that amount of silk.

Must be RNG. I’m getting more Silk than Leather. Not a huge difference, by any means (about 60:40 in favor of Silk), but it’s noticeable in my material storage.

As mentioned, leather has less uses than cloth which means there is less demand. Based on my drop rate research, leather also has a higher chance to drop from the most commonly acquired bags which means that it also has a supply glut.

Low Demand + High Supply = Stupid Low Prices

Svarty.8019:

Thala.2801:

So what gives? Why is the demand for cloth so much stronger than the demand for leather when they’re uses and obtainability are reasonably similar?

John Smith changed the recipe for silk from 2 scraps to 3 scraps.

I remember why the silk cloth recipe was changed from 2 to 3. Because there was a time where silk scraps were overabundant. Much like how useless Bloodstone Dust is now.

But now the market for silk scraps is turning into a buyer’s market and prices are much higher than other similar materials. One way to fix price discrepancy would be to return to the old recipe of 2 silk scraps for 1 silk cloth. For example, this could reduce the big price gap between crafting ascended light armor and the other armor types.

I do agree that Silk was overcorrected back when Ascended armorcrafting was introduced. They probably could have left it as 2 scraps → 1 bolt and had the 100 Bolts per Damask change, or increased it to 3 scraps → 1 bolt and kept the 50 Bolts per Damask in line with other T7 mats.

However, it seems like the market IS capable of bearing the Silk prices, despite what we as players might feel about it, so I doubt we’ll see a correction anytime soon. (As much as I’d like one personally.)