Guild Wars 2

To what extent are the products generated by the Mystic Forge predictable? I’ve been throwing stuff in the forge as I level up in weapons crafting; should I be paying more attention to the relationship between the goes-intos and comes-out-ofs???

You should be vendoring the stuff and buying the nicer weapons that you want.

If you put in four items of the same type (like 4 staffs) then you’ll get a random staff. If it’s just 4 random weapons, then you’ll get out a random weapon that has no relation to the weapon types you put it.

The item you get out is usually of higher level than what you put in. It’s usually of the same quality, with a small chance of becoming higher quality.

In the vast majority of cases, doing this with leveling items will lose you money. You may luck out occasionally, but there just aren’t many valuable leveling items out there.

It’s a slightly different case when you use level 80 weapons. With items around level 75 or 80, you get a chance to make exotics that players want and legendary precursors. These can be sold for decent money (or start you on the way to a legendary). If you want the specifics on making these, look them up elsewhere. Expect that with time, the profit margin for many of the exotics will probably drop. I don’t know if this kind of mystic forge use is a net profit or a net loss, so investigate this at your own peril.

There are 2 things the mystic forge can do, recipes, and randomizing. If you’re jut tossing in random items, you fall into that second group, the randoms. There will never be a relationship there, so just keep doing what you’re doing.