Guild Wars 2

Looking at the account bound items used in creating ascended gear:
– The Augur’s Stone costs skill points. Which says ANET wants people to only get them if they go around earning xp, not earning gold through gems or playing the TP.
– Bloodstone dust, Obsidian Shard, Dragonite Ore and Empyreal Fragments are all only obtainable in some ways, so it seems ANET doesn’t want people to get them unless they do those things.
– Thermocatalytic Reagent. Purchased from vendors for coin. Seems like a gold sink.

Those I understand. ANET doesn’t want people getting Ascended gear without playing GW2 in specific ways. But then we get to dark matter, which I don’t understand. You can get it via spending gold, so it doesn’t limit you to doing specific things to acquire it. You just need to acquire gold.

Yes the same is true of luck. But I understand luck being account bound because the sheer quantity of salvaging you must do if you want to harvest it encourages people to buy the copper-fed salvage-o-matic from the gem store because of the convenience it offers over having to keep buying new kits.

But you can completely avoid the salvaging for dark matter because what matters isn’t the dark matter itself, what you craft with it. All of which can be traded. So if you find the salvaging too annoying, you can just skip the dark matter step completely.

Can someone help me understand what ANET is hoping to accomplish by keeping dark matter account bound ?

You can only get it indirectly with gold, assuming you are buying high level exotics. If they weren’t account bound then you could sell them on the TP and buy them directly. Since it’s only used to craft ascended items it’s just like the other ascended oriented materials you’ve already mentioned. You have to be willing to salvage exotic gear to get it. Since exotic gear does drop as well as pop out of the forge, the TP isn’t the only way to get the “raw materials” to salvage dark matter.

Accountbound dark matter – worth an exotic. opportunity cost, yada yada.

Nonbound dark matter – worth nothing.

Personally speaking, I do wish I could buy them. I’m at 146 out of the 420 I’ll need. I’ve also heard that some players (frequent dungeon runners, I’m guessing) have stacks of Dark Matter and nothing to spend them on.

Behellagh.1468:

You can only get it indirectly with gold, assuming you are buying high level exotics.

You can still dump lots of gold to get hold of a lot of it.

Since it’s only used to craft ascended items it’s just like the other ascended oriented materials you’ve already mentioned. You have to be willing to salvage exotic gear to get it.

With all the things I mentioned, I want them for the sake of crafting something with them. Dark Matter stands out because you can buy the stuff you craft with it off the trading post. You can build yourself a full set of ascended gear without ever touching a piece of dark matter.

Zaxares.5419:

I’ve also heard that some players (frequent dungeon runners, I’m guessing) have stacks of Dark Matter and nothing to spend them on.

They could always craft and sell inscriptions/insignia. Right now, GW2spidy shows that using that dark matter to craft a Zojja’s Berserker Inscription nets a 6 gold profit per inscription crafted. Because while the dark matter is account bound, the inscription isn’t.

RemiRome.8495:

Accountbound dark matter – worth an exotic. opportunity cost, yada yada.

Or I just skip dark matter and by the inscription/insignia off the trading post. Let someone else worry about the opportunity cost.

The drop rate is incredibly low without black lion salvage kit?

is it worth buying the black lion salvage kit for this?

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

Or I just skip dark matter and by the inscription/insignia off the trading post. Let someone else worry about the opportunity cost.

Considering the amount of exotics that are worth less than a gold, you arent giving up much in the way of buying the ascended parts. On the other hand, you’re paying up to 15g over the crafting cost itself. In fact, I’ve crafted a full set of Ascended armor, and an additional four (that I can currently remember) Ascended weapons. I still have enough dark matter left to craft another full set of Ascended armor. That’s nearly half a stack of dark matter that’s kitten easy to accumulate while running fractals thanks to the kittenty Magi drops.

Given the cost involved, 15g doesn’t seem like that much. Not when it allows me to avoid the RNG aspect of salvaging.

Just like how I prefer to sell items on the trading post than do the calculations to see which are worth salvaging and with what kit. I know I’ll make less gold from each item this way, but that’s a fair cost for letting me avoid parts of GW2 I don’t enjoy.

My past experiences in MMOs tells me that there are a lot of people who look at profit per item, not how much coin they earn per hour*. Or maybe they enjoy the salvaging. So I can’t even be sure if I’ll be making more gold per hour salvaging the items myself.

The bit I’m trying to understand is what behavior ANET is trying to encourage by having dark matter be account bound, but the insignia and inscriptions being tradeable ?

*The most obvious example is one of the WTS spammers I saw in GW1. He was trying to sell a rune for about 1,000 gold (which was a fair price). He could have sold it to an NPC for about 750. I saw him once, went away for about an hour, then came back to see him still trying to sell that same rune. I was reliably making 3-4k from vendor trash in about an hour of play.

because everything thats buyable is too easy to get, doesnt take enough time, and would cheapen the experience of using it. end of discussion

Duke Nukem.6783:

because everything thats buyable is too easy to get, doesnt take enough time, and would cheapen the experience of using it. end of discussion

That doesn’t make any sense. Not when there is no reason to want dark matter except to craft inscriptions and insignia for ascended items. Which can be bought and sold on the trading post.

Realize that sometimes a player will craft an inscription by mistake, and will wish to unload it on the TP rather than use it. And depending on the price, some players may intentionally craft inscriptions on the idea that they can profit from it. Heck, I already made my Ascended weapons and armor, and I might have roughly 80 Dark Matter left. If I won’t be using them, I have the option of getting rid of them for some money.

One more thing, if players didn’t post these inscriptions in the first place, you wouldn’t be able to use your Gold to buy them. So consider yourself lucky that you can bypass the Ascended material gates that’s in place.

Certain inscriptions you can make a profit off as their craft price is often 10-15g higher than what it would cost to buy the materials.