Guild Wars 2

Before I start, I know forging isn’t the best idea (RNG and all), but I have two questions both of which I feel like have been answered before but I can’t find them.

1. Is there a consensus on whether it’s more effective to use exotics as opposed to rares? I know it all boils down to RNG, but is there any real good research that has been done to give a more definitive answer from a cost/# of tries point of view?

2. Can you use 3 exotics/rares and 1 mystic forge stone and still get a precursor? If so, do the odds change? Basically, does the MF simply treat the stone as a level 75 item?

TIA

Everything I recall suggests that exotics do have a better drop rate, but at current prices are much less cost effective.

I’m pretty sure that works, but, and I’m not certain on this, I think the forge treats it as a generic weapon, so it makes the returned item random (instead of a guaranteed bow, or harpoon, or whatever else you are throwing in).

Throwing in 3 rare greatswords and a mystic forge stone can yield a rare or exotic wepon, piece of armour or trinket. Throwing in 3 exotic weapons and a mystic forge stone will always yield an exotic weapon.

1. Most of the time, rares are what you want to use. There was a brief period of time after ascended weapons came out that made forging with exotics feasible, but right now they’re hellishly expensive and you probably are better of not using them. With crafting only lvl 80 rares you’re looking at a cost of about 780g-820g for swords, daggers and greatswords, which are the ones that most people go for, I guess.

2. You can, but if you use the stone with 3 items of the same kind, the game will still treat the stone as a random item, giving you a random precursor in return. The odds of getting one aren’t changed in any way though and using 3 random exotics with a forge stone isn’t the worst idea.
However, using a forge stone with 3 rares would be kinda dumb imo.

I was hanging out by the forge and someone said they got the spear precursor off 3 rares and a stone. It can happen.

As for whether to use exotics or rares, exotics are barely better than using rares. The only advantage to using exotics is that you’re guaranteed an exotic in return that could be a precursor. The only time most people can reliably throw in exotics is when they buy them with dungeon tokens.

Cormac.3871:

Throwing in 3 rare greatswords and a mystic forge stone can yield a rare or exotic wepon, piece of armour or trinket. Throwing in 3 exotic weapons and a mystic forge stone will always yield an exotic weapon.

This is not true, if you throw in 3 rare weapons with a mystic stone, you will always get a random rare or exotic weapon back.

OP:

If its better to use exotics or rares depends on their price. You need 4 exotics to get an exotic back and you need 16 rares to get an exotic back on average, assuming a 20% chance to get an exotic. So if your 16 rares are cheaper than 4 exotics, use rares, if the for exotics are cheaper, use exotics.

Some people argue that the chance to get a precursor are slightly higher while using a mystic stone but getting a big enough sample size and data on it hasnt happened yet.

Personally, i got the colossus with a stone and 3 random rares.
These days, whenever i get mystic stones from achi chests, i put in buy orders for cheap named exotic weapons. Most of them have buy order prices as cheap as any other exotic weapon. The upside of using those is that you will unlock the skin when throwing them into the forge.