Guild Wars 2

So I have 87 Laurels now. What’s the best way to use these so the end result is towards my Legendary. I’m about 1/3 the way for each of the T6 mats and in the need for Ectos (300 or so)

Thanks for the replies.

Trade them for Heavy Crafting Bags, in my opinion. Obsidian can be obtained via karma and Fractal relics, and using Laurels for T6 mats can save you a fair bit of gold.

I would hold onto them for now, at least until you are very close.

The T6 bags will give you the most gold/laurel, but with ascended armor crafting, and precursor crafting, and new legendary weapons all just around the corner there may be a new use for laurels that you’ll miss out on.

I used them mostly for the Heavy Crafting Bags (but I kept 50, just in case…)

Now that I no longer need all T6 materials anymore (only need to max 4 more types), I will exchange them for the Mystic Binding Agent. Corrupted Lodestones just refuse to drop for me, but I do have some Corrupted Cores. And you can turn those into Lodestones, using the Binding Agent.

Hold on to your laurels. They’re banked time. Use your coin to make more coin and buy the mats off the TP. It sounds counter-intuitive, but here is what I did. I sold my precursor – take a deep breath – yes, and tripled the amount [330g—>900g] within two weeks because I saw some amazing opportunities that only required me to have a lot of coin. You need a bit of prior experience in trading to see the right opportunities though.
But most of the good opportunities require investments of 45g and up. Fair? No, but it works.

I prefer to use my laurels (which would otherwise be sitting doing nothing) than to use the TP to get money. The TP for me is only a place where I can stuff I don’t need and buy stuff I do need.

And we’re not all that lucky with our drops. I’ve never seen a drop that is even close to being 330g worth…

Besides, why would I want to hold on to my laurels? In that case, I probably shouldn’t have bought the two minis and potion either…

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

I prefer to use my laurels (which would otherwise be sitting doing nothing) than to use the TP to get money. The TP for me is only a place where I can stuff I don’t need and buy stuff I do need.

And we’re not all that lucky with our drops. I’ve never seen a drop that is even close to being 330g worth…

Besides, why would I want to hold on to my laurels? In that case, I probably shouldn’t have bought the two minis and potion either…

You assume that this precursor dropped. It hadn’t. I had bought it a few months back at 180g. And laurels are needed for many interesting things, which amongst others include ascended recipes. You can bet your money on the fact this trend will continue for buying recipes necessary to craft ascended armor.

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

I used them mostly for the Heavy Crafting Bags (but I kept 50, just in case…)

Now that I no longer need all T6 materials anymore (only need to max 4 more types), I will exchange them for the Mystic Binding Agent. Corrupted Lodestones just refuse to drop for me, but I do have some Corrupted Cores. And you can turn those into Lodestones, using the Binding Agent.

Lady – I was using my Laurels for Binding Agents as well, but then did some calculations. It is more cost effective to buy unidentified dyes and sell those. I used my laurels for my charged lodestones for Infinite Light. Wish I would have done the math first

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

I prefer to use my laurels (which would otherwise be sitting doing nothing) than to use the TP to get money. The TP for me is only a place where I can stuff I don’t need and buy stuff I do need.

And we’re not all that lucky with our drops. I’ve never seen a drop that is even close to being 330g worth…

Besides, why would I want to hold on to my laurels? In that case, I probably shouldn’t have bought the two minis and potion either…

Lady, in 3 days, I can convert 1g to 8g with high velocity low value trades. It’s work, but very doable.
From there, I can put 4g into trades at a 200% return with a longer time to turn over (1-14 days), and use the other 4g to make another 4g for investing the next day.
If I keep that up for a month, putting 4g into the fast return items and the rest into slower return high profit items, I can stop investing and let my outstanding trades complete, in a couple days I’ll have the kind of funds I need for the high value, lower margin trades that Buttercup is talking about. Lower margin, yes, but less effort per gold made, and things can go fast from there.

Good luck with that, I can’t…. I just don’t have the patience to do that.

And I use my ascended crafted items to sell on the TP (to show how much interest I have in ascended items…) so I can get some extra gold for my legendary…

And I haven’t looked at dye yet…. Maybe that would work too.

The heavy crafting bags for the T6 is by far the best use of laurels for those interested in a legendary.

Buying unid dyes and selling is also a way to get gold for the legendary, though just selling the extra T6 you get might be more profitable per laurel.

2 unid dye = 1 laurel or 3 T6 = 1 laurel. Depending on current prices, the T6 might yield a better gold return if selling.

I checked the prices yesterday, in game. Considering I mostly need the lodestones, I did some calculations.

I need Corrupted Lodestones. Those are between 68.5 and 73.5 silvers to buy (highest buy offer and lowest sell offer).

You can craft those lodestones using Corrupted Cores. Those are between 6.50 and 6.90. Let’s say you buy two of those at 6.50 (for a total of 13 silver).
You also need a Pile of Crystaline Dust. Which is between 15.70 and 15.80. (total 28.70 silver). The third ingredient is 1/3 skill point, which I won’t put a price on (3 crystals for 1 SP, and you need 1 crystal).

That means a Lodestone will cost you 28.70 silver + 1 laurel. A laurel is now worth 68.50 – 28.70 = 39.80 silver.

On average, a T6 material will net you between 15 and 30 silver (exluding taxes!). But, the biggest problem for me, it depends on luck. If you’re lucky, you get the more expensive T6 material and a laurel would be worth more than when you would get the binding agents and buy the stuff off the TP. But if you’re unlucky, or, even more importantly, if you have the cores and dust already, it’s more profitable to buy the agents.

At least, if you want Corrupted Lodestones. I also need Glacial ones, and it’s most certainly not more profitable there! (those are between 17 and 20 silver to buy…)

Using Laurels for T6 just seems very wrong to me. To me Laurels should only be spent on things you cannot get any other way. If that list is not interesting today, it may change with a future release so it seems wise to save them. Mine are piling up now that I have decided to stop wasting them on infusions and jewelry hoping that we will be able to craft the infusions and jewelry some time in the not to distant future.

Using gold for lodestones just seems very wrong to me. I should be able to get them as drops. But as I don’t get them (I’ve had 2! drop in over a year of playing), I’ll use laurels, which are just another form of currency (just like karma, gold and dungeon tokens).

@Lady
If you ran the Scarlet invasions a few months back, cores and lodestones of all types were dropping out of champ bags like crazy. This lowered the TP prices for awhile since there was so much supply available.

Still, the Frostgorge champ train is decent source of cores and the odd lodestone ,particularly corrupted and glacial.

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

Using gold for lodestones just seems very wrong to me. I should be able to get them as drops. But as I don’t get them (I’ve had 2! drop in over a year of playing), I’ll use laurels, which are just another form of currency (just like karma, gold and dungeon tokens).

I feel your pain in having to ‘buy’ things instead of ‘farming’ them, but ANet often limits things to ONLY being bought with Laurels which are time gated where as gold is NOT so some day you may regret burning Laurels instead of gold.

Also if you look at the TP as just trading it’s not so bad. Sell the rare items you get as drops you don’t want to trade for rare drops that others get.

Since the Champ loot bags were introduced, I’ve managed to accrue a small stockpile of about 20 or so across all the different types. And this is as a player who doesn’t do the Champ trains at all. If you need lots of a particular type of Lodestone, you’ll almost certainly still need to buy them, but the Champ loot bags have pumped a LOT more supply into the economy, which I’m thankful for.

I have about 15 of the molten and destroyer ones. But the corrupted and glacial just elude me. And I did a lot of those scarlet invasions.

(oh, and I’ve done a few champ runs in Frostgorge, where those lodestones are supposed to drop, but they simply won’t drop for me, I only get the cores….)

Elric Of Melnibone.4781:

I feel your pain in having to ‘buy’ things instead of ‘farming’ them, but ANet often limits things to ONLY being bought with Laurels which are time gated where as gold is NOT so some day you may regret burning Laurels instead of gold.

Considering I never even looked at the ascended trinkets you can buy with laurels, I doubt I’ll ever regret anything. I am not one of those that needs something the day it is available. If it takes a few weeks, it’ll probably take me a few months before I get it. I started playing in September (pre-release, etc) and had my very first lvl80 in January…

I did the Frostgorge champ train last evening for 30 min.
I received. 1 core each of molten, charged, glacial, and 2 corrupted,. I also got a glacial lodestone.

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

I checked the prices yesterday, in game. Considering I mostly need the lodestones, I did some calculations.

I need Corrupted Lodestones. Those are between 68.5 and 73.5 silvers to buy (highest buy offer and lowest sell offer).

You can craft those lodestones using Corrupted Cores. Those are between 6.50 and 6.90. Let’s say you buy two of those at 6.50 (for a total of 13 silver).
You also need a Pile of Crystaline Dust. Which is between 15.70 and 15.80. (total 28.70 silver). The third ingredient is 1/3 skill point, which I won’t put a price on (3 crystals for 1 SP, and you need 1 crystal).

That means a Lodestone will cost you 28.70 silver + 1 laurel. A laurel is now worth 68.50 – 28.70 = 39.80 silver.

On average, a T6 material will net you between 15 and 30 silver (exluding taxes!). But, the biggest problem for me, it depends on luck. If you’re lucky, you get the more expensive T6 material and a laurel would be worth more than when you would get the binding agents and buy the stuff off the TP. But if you’re unlucky, or, even more importantly, if you have the cores and dust already, it’s more profitable to buy the agents.

At least, if you want Corrupted Lodestones. I also need Glacial ones, and it’s most certainly not more profitable there! (those are between 17 and 20 silver to buy…)

You get three T6 per bag. So at your low end of 15 silver each, that’s 45 silver which is greater than your 39.8 estimate. The T6s from the bags are the best bet per Laurel:Gold. The only time I’d consider the binding agent worth more for the Legendary process is if those Lodestones were all that I needed to complete it. Even then, I’d probably go for the gold and buy them direct.

And that’s from Legendary making experience. I’m finishing up number six. And to you all mentioning TP flipping, if only I had the patients, I’m sure I’d be on ten plus.

Pennry.9215:

You get three T6 per bag. So at your low end of 15 silver each, that’s 45 silver which is greater than your 39.8 estimate. The T6s from the bags are the best bet per Laurel:Gold. The only time I’d consider the binding agent worth more for the Legendary process is if those Lodestones were all that I needed to complete it. Even then, I’d probably go for the gold and buy them direct..

Yes, it’s slightly more profitable. Unless you already have cores and dust (from drops). Then it suddenly becomes a lot less profitable, because then a laurel is worth over 60s.

That’s why I got 10 agents (from my monthly laurels) and use the daily laurels for the bags. That way I can transform cores into lodestones if I have the required materials.

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

I checked the prices yesterday, in game. Considering I mostly need the lodestones, I did some calculations.

I need Corrupted Lodestones. Those are between 68.5 and 73.5 silvers to buy (highest buy offer and lowest sell offer).

You can craft those lodestones using Corrupted Cores. Those are between 6.50 and 6.90. Let’s say you buy two of those at 6.50 (for a total of 13 silver).
You also need a Pile of Crystaline Dust. Which is between 15.70 and 15.80. (total 28.70 silver). The third ingredient is 1/3 skill point, which I won’t put a price on (3 crystals for 1 SP, and you need 1 crystal).

That means a Lodestone will cost you 28.70 silver + 1 laurel. A laurel is now worth 68.50 – 28.70 = 39.80 silver.

On average, a T6 material will net you between 15 and 30 silver (exluding taxes!). But, the biggest problem for me, it depends on luck. If you’re lucky, you get the more expensive T6 material and a laurel would be worth more than when you would get the binding agents and buy the stuff off the TP. But if you’re unlucky, or, even more importantly, if you have the cores and dust already, it’s more profitable to buy the agents.

At least, if you want Corrupted Lodestones. I also need Glacial ones, and it’s most certainly not more profitable there! (those are between 17 and 20 silver to buy…)

IIRC, for T5->T6 conversions, the binding material just replaces Elonian wine — so it is only worth ~26s if you use laurels for binding materials. For T1->T2 conversions and the like, it makes the process less tedious and a little cheaper as it allows you to do larger batches and with fewer bottles of Elonian wine.

For Infinite Light, I did a lot of core -> lodestone conversions (cores were ~65-70s, lodestones were 2-2.1g, so for the 200 or so which I bought, that was ~400g for lodestones versus ~310g (for cores + dust + Elonian wine) plus 200 skill points).

Material promotion is one of the ways to establish a gold equivalence value for skill points.

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

Pennry.9215:

You get three T6 per bag. So at your low end of 15 silver each, that’s 45 silver which is greater than your 39.8 estimate. The T6s from the bags are the best bet per Laurel:Gold. The only time I’d consider the binding agent worth more for the Legendary process is if those Lodestones were all that I needed to complete it. Even then, I’d probably go for the gold and buy them direct..

Yes, it’s slightly more profitable. Unless you already have cores and dust (from drops). Then it suddenly becomes a lot less profitable, because then a laurel is worth over 60s.

That’s why I got 10 agents (from my monthly laurels) and use the daily laurels for the bags. That way I can transform cores into lodestones if I have the required materials.

Just because you got it as a drop, doesn’t mean it has no value. Sell the cores, dusts, and T6s from Laurels. It all adds up when calculating value.

I just think it silly to sell stuff so you can buy stuff you could have made yourself by the stuff you sold…

If the T6 stuff would drop more often than 1 item per week (for me), I’d not even have bought any materials on the TP for my legendary. But because I don’t want to farm a specific area for materials, I will have to buy those materials off the TP, but will “craft” them if I can, using materials that do drop for me. I’ve never been one for the “most efficient” path. But if I can spare out some silvers by using laurels (= agents) instead of wine, I will. Because those laurels will be sitting doing nothing otherwise, while I can use the silvers on other materials I need.

The question was the best way to use laurels for a legendary. I’m not sure many would say using more coin is the best way, just to say they upgraded a mat they didn’t need but had. All I’m saying is you gain more silvers saved for whatever you need with the T6 bags. The laurels won’t be “sitting doing nothing otherwise”, they’d be getting spent to net you more coin to better help you to your goal.

But do as you want, I’ll keep being “silly” making more.

Let’s just agree that we disagree on what’s the best way :P

This thread makes me believe there’s no “best way” at all. It all depends on how you play, what you want and what the market is doing…