Guild Wars 2

So I’ve been saving up gold for precursors and I’m going for the spark. As most of you might know, the spark costs 600g on the market. That’s slot of g. I have about 117 right now and using the mystic forge seems like the easiest way. My options are to get 250 rare daggers off the tp and craft them or get about 60 exotics. With the exotics, every time will give a exotic back but 250 rares is a lot of rares. What do you recommend doing? Thanks

What I did- I wasn’t even going for a precursor- in fact I was going for the Delusion staff since it is no longer on the market- I just used my dungeon tokens getting 3 AC staves & 1 TA staff – threw it in the MF & got The Legend. What a surprise, it’s literally been months since I’ve used the MF & I got the Bifrost Precursor on the 1st try. My magic find is 83% but I think it was just luck. The best thing to do is use Dungeon tokens to get your precursor. You’re not wasting anything.. except time if that’s really important to you, but only gaining gold through dungeoning instead of wasting it on rares when it’s 100x better to use dungeon exotics which are basically free. I hope that makes sense! XD

Craft rares -> sell exotics. But 100 gold is not enough. Only if you are lucky.

Chasind.3128:

What I did- I wasn’t even going for a precursor- in fact I was going for the Delusion staff since it is no longer on the market- I just used my dungeon tokens getting 3 AC staves & 1 TA staff – threw it in the MF & got The Legend. What a surprise, it’s literally been months since I’ve used the MF & I got the Bifrost Precursor on the 1st try. My magic find is 83% but I think it was just luck. The best thing to do is use Dungeon tokens to get your precursor. You’re not wasting anything.. except time if that’s really important to you, but only gaining gold through dungeoning instead of wasting it on rares when it’s 100x better to use dungeon exotics which are basically free. I hope that makes sense! XD

They aren’t really free. If you consider the ectos you could be getting from them on average it’ll be about the same cost as most rares. On the other hand getting an exotic for the price of a rare is a pretty good deal.

If you are going to go that route it would probably be better to use TA and farm the aetherpath since some of those alternate skin weapons can sell for a decent chunk of gold.

Rammmuel.1806:

So I’ve been saving up gold for precursors and I’m going for the spark. As most of you might know, the spark costs 600g on the market. That’s slot of g. I have about 117 right now and using the mystic forge seems like the easiest way. My options are to get 250 rare daggers off the tp and craft them or get about 60 exotics. With the exotics, every time will give a exotic back but 250 rares is a lot of rares. What do you recommend doing? Thanks

Craft rares but remember its purely RNG.

Just to give you an idea:

The only precursor I got from exotics was The Chosen from 4 dungeon shields, took 4 tries. Tried also other exotics but probably lost 200g-300g and got nothing.

As for rares, last Spark I got took 5g, before that it took 500g. Best precursor I got so far is Dusk on 2nd combine so that’s like 2g, worst was The Legend after 600g on MF.

I whole heartedly agree with the dungeon tokens. Running dungeons gets you 1 gold minimum per run. So the more dungeons you run, the more gold you get. So its a 2 birds with one stone scenario. I have heard that its a better chance using dungeon exotics in the forge as well. As far as the rares go, it sounds like a great idea because you can get tons of rares for the same gold that you can get fewer exotics but I’ve tried that route and it was a total waste of gold. My suggestion is run dungeons for tokens. By the time you try 4 or 5 times, if you don’t have your precurs you should have a decent bank roll to try with exotics. Good luck! And to show my credentials, I’ve pulled a spark, chosen, dawn, zap, AND the legend out of the forge, so I know what I’m talking about :o)

Why are people throwing rares into the MF to get a pre? That makes no sense, Throw in exotics to get exotics back- Do Dungeons for the tokens, use the tokens to buy the exotic weapons- I did that with staves & got The Legend; Bifrost precursor on the 1st try. Yeah it was luck & I wasn’t even trying to get a precursor, I was going for the Delusion staff. You’re actually wasting gold buying rares & throwing them in to maybe get someone good back- there’s a very very very slim chance in doing that SO you’re better off getting the exotic weapons from dungeon tokens :P

Chasind.3128:

Why are people throwing rares into the MF to get a pre? That makes no sense, Throw in exotics to get exotics back- Do Dungeons for the tokens, use the tokens to buy the exotic weapons- I did that with staves & got The Legend; Bifrost precursor on the 1st try. Yeah it was luck & I wasn’t even trying to get a precursor, I was going for the Delusion staff. You’re actually wasting gold buying rares & throwing them in to maybe get someone good back- there’s a very very very slim chance in doing that SO you’re better off getting the exotic weapons from dungeon tokens :P

I like that you pretend to know what you’re talking about for some of your post, but then mid way through you expose what it actually is you’re basing your ’’experience’’ on.

Use rares if you want spark. The only precursor i use exotics on is The Lover since its Cheap. Rares are almost ALWAYS better. I’ve pulled 28 precursors from the forge. 8 of them being Spark. I play the forge daily. Trust me, go with rares.

Use exotics if they’re under 1.5 gold each. Use rares when exotics are too expensive.

Used about 100 rares (not a lot) on spark. Got nothing.
Used about 20-30 exotic longbows, got leaf of kudzu.
Used 8 exotic pistols, got chaos gun.
Went YOLO mode with random weapons. Got The Bard.

Rng will be rng.

Rammmuel.1806:

So I’ve been saving up gold for precursors and I’m going for the spark. As most of you might know, the spark costs 600g on the market. That’s slot of g. I have about 117 right now and using the mystic forge seems like the easiest way.

It may seem to be the easiest way, but you really should be prepared on losing more than 600g that way. If you had enough money to dump really insane number of rares/exotics into the forge, you’d likely get ahead in the long run, but trying for only one precursor is subject to a really high variance of results. If you look at the forum history, you will find stories of people that dumped 2000 gold (or more) into the forge and got nothing for it.

My advice? Visit every world boss event daily. Salvage (sell/whatever) the armor. Rare weapon types whose precursors cost a lot throw in the bank, and group until get 4 of those. Then throw in MF, pray to RNG gods, shake zommoros and see what gets thrown out. Cheap weapon types (like focus, torch, underwater weapons) throw in separate group and also forge in groups of 4.
Results either sell (if you get exotics worth 2-3 gold or more), or put back into the “to be forged” bin. If you get a rare drop in the open world, treat it the same way.

This will take some time, but eventually you will get a precursor. Might be a different one than you wanted, but that can still be sold for money.

Or just sell everything and farm money directly, that works as well, and offers a sure way to get what you want.

Astralporing.1957:

It may seem to be the easiest way, but you really should be prepared on losing more than 600g that way. If you had enough money to dump really insane number of rares/exotics into the forge, you’d likely get ahead in the long run, but trying for only one precursor is subject to a really high variance of results. If you look at the forum history, you will find stories of people that dumped 2000 gold (or more) into the forge and got nothing for it.

My advice? Visit every world boss event daily. Salvage (sell/whatever) the armor. Rare weapon types whose precursors cost a lot throw in the bank, and group until get 4 of those. Then throw in MF, pray to RNG gods, shake zommoros and see what gets thrown out. Cheap weapon types (like focus, torch, underwater weapons) throw in separate group and also forge in groups of 4.
Results either sell (if you get exotics worth 2-3 gold or more), or put back into the “to be forged” bin. If you get a rare drop in the open world, treat it the same way.

This will take some time, but eventually you will get a precursor. Might be a different one than you wanted, but that can still be sold for money.

Or just sell everything and farm money directly, that works as well, and offers a sure way to get what you want.

This is sound advice (with the presumption that buying the precursor from the TP is not an option).

The only thing I can add is to not overdo it; “Mystic forge” at a pace you can afford.

I do pretty much what Astralporing suggested and personally my comfortable “MF pace” is 16 crafted rares a day, plus any rare weapons I get from the world boss events.

Ishmel.1308:

Astralporing.1957:

It may seem to be the easiest way, but you really should be prepared on losing more than 600g that way. If you had enough money to dump really insane number of rares/exotics into the forge, you’d likely get ahead in the long run, but trying for only one precursor is subject to a really high variance of results. If you look at the forum history, you will find stories of people that dumped 2000 gold (or more) into the forge and got nothing for it.

My advice? Visit every world boss event daily. Salvage (sell/whatever) the armor. Rare weapon types whose precursors cost a lot throw in the bank, and group until get 4 of those. Then throw in MF, pray to RNG gods, shake zommoros and see what gets thrown out. Cheap weapon types (like focus, torch, underwater weapons) throw in separate group and also forge in groups of 4.
Results either sell (if you get exotics worth 2-3 gold or more), or put back into the “to be forged” bin. If you get a rare drop in the open world, treat it the same way.

This will take some time, but eventually you will get a precursor. Might be a different one than you wanted, but that can still be sold for money.

Or just sell everything and farm money directly, that works as well, and offers a sure way to get what you want.

This is sound advice (with the presumption that buying the precursor from the TP is not an option).

The only thing I can add is to not overdo it; “Mystic forge” at a pace you can afford.

I do pretty much what Astralporing suggested and personally my comfortable “MF pace” is 16 crafted rares a day, plus any rare weapons I get from the world boss events.

It may take months this way. Statistically you need about 1500-2000 rares. And there are no guarantees.

ezd.6359:

It may take months this way. Statistically you need about 1500-2000 rares. And there are no guarantees.

Of course. But it won’t make you ragequit after you dumped 2000g into the forge and got nothing, at least.

The only sure way is selling every drop, farming gold and buying precursor off TP, after all.

umm Don’t use the mystic forge I’ve put in about 1500g into it and got nothing.

Saved up to get my Dawn to make Sunrise. I’m done playing the mystic forge its a complete waste of time and money and all these people here will keep blabbing on about how they got 28 Precursors from it well with the same amount of gold Ive got ZERO most of the people in this game as just like me… only 1% are lucky enough to EVER get one from the forge 99% will never get one no matter how much gold they put in.

Best advice would be to save your gold… and wait for Anet to implement a new way to get one.. crafting is coming.. they SAID SO!

VidGhost.3215:

umm Don’t use the mystic forge I’ve put in about 1500g into it and got nothing.

Saved up to get my Dawn to make Sunrise. I’m done playing the mystic forge its a complete waste of time and money and all these people here will keep blabbing on about how they got 28 Precursors from it well with the same amount of gold Ive got ZERO most of the people in this game as just like me… only 1% are lucky enough to EVER get one from the forge 99% will never get one no matter how much gold they put in.

Best advice would be to save your gold… and wait for Anet to implement a new way to get one.. crafting is coming.. they SAID SO!

I did not know your 1500g spent is equivalent to my 7000g spent. Thanks for that heads up bud.

(I laugh so hard at people like you who lose everything and cry)

Bottom line is don’t gamble what you are not willing to lose in the MF cause 99% chance you will lose. I just grinded and bought the 4 precursors I wanted to make legendaries with and called it a day.

I was one of the lucky players that put a few gold worth of yellows into the forge after doing some meta event, and got The Chosen (Sold 280g). However, i made a greedy mistake to keep going. Over 4-5 months I’d probably put another 500-700g into the forge trying for more precursers. Eventually i did get another, Storm and it was low value when i sold it for 110g. So even though i was lucky orginally, my luck ran out. I ended up spending more than i could have bought them for.

ty all for posting this topic
i got my dusk on 4 try with dungeon tokens from cof,cm,ac tokens.

MF is unpredictable. I consider myself rather lucky with it. Once I was desperate and really wanted to get The Bifrost some day, so I threw exotics worth of 180g to forge and got The Legend.
Second time I ran nodes to finance crafting a lot of rare greatswords (so cheap). I put the rares in the forge and hoped for exotics. Then I put the exotics in the forge for bigger chance to get precursor. After few days I pulled out Dawn, which I sold to get money for Dusk.

From these 2 ways to play with forge, I suggest the latter. Pour in your wealth little by little, so you will never be left broke.

Had 150 some mystic forge stones (from achievement chests), decided to try the MF (got bored with the rest of the game) and bought 21 of the cheapest exotic weapons out of which (3 exotics and one forge stone) I got Rage and Tooth of Frostfang. Next 21 exotics I got nothing, then the next day I did 27 exotics and got the precursor for the spear (total spent around 85g and sold everything for around 600g net). So I got those from around 30 forges.

It’s pure RNG, but personally I would rather be guaranteed to get an exotic out of a forge (and then try to hit the % chance for a precursor) rather than have to hit the % chance to get an exotic and then have to hit the % chance to get a precursor on top of that. I used lvl 80 exotics too.

1500 g of exotic 80 lvl Greatsword throw in Mystic Forge and NOTHING NOTHING
300 g at a time
nothing nothing with magic find bost omnomberry bar and magic find banner 256 MF
lvl 80 character and 100 map completition
well for 2014 i will probally quite from this game if i dont get at least a freking precursor since game got borred fractals lvl 50, wvw rank 400, ascendant armour and weapons titles over titles and all i wanted was a freaking precursor and nothing nothing.

bogdan.2540:

1500 g of exotic 80 lvl Greatsword throw in Mystic Forge and NOTHING NOTHING
300 g at a time
nothing nothing with magic find bost omnomberry bar and magic find banner 256 MF
lvl 80 character and 100 map completition
well for 2014 i will probally quite from this game if i dont get at least a freking precursor since game got borred fractals lvl 50, wvw rank 400, ascendant armour and weapons titles over titles and all i wanted was a freaking precursor and nothing nothing.

This suck dude i know. I burned away 2000g+ once. And i feeled just like you “i will definetly quit this game” but then in one random attempt “The Colossus”. The wheel turns and it will turn also on your side sooner or later

I was lucky this weekend or well in fact my girlfriend. I been using the MF for a few months mainly when the MF daily is present I just buy 20 rare weapons and throw them in. Never been very lucky mostly got rares back and a few exotics.

My GF plays very casual but needed a daily so I told her here you have 10G buy some rares and see what happens. I noticed she got 4 exotics out of the 5 tries. I remember there was a rumor or myth some accounts have more luck then others (I still doubt it).

I have been trying to save to get Bifrost for my Necro eventually. But seeing it was going fine but not fast I made the decision to send all my gold (145G) to my GF and let her buy all rare staffs and go to the MF. She got 200 rare staffs for that G. I figured lets try if it fails I stop hunting the Bifrost.

She was lucky, very lucky. After a few tries with random exotics dropping out of the MF she got The Legend. I was like omg now i really need to go for Bifrost. She still had about 140 staffs left. I was already happy so she kept on going just for the fun. And after a while another the Legend dropped!

So now I have one the Legend in the bank and sold one to get me on my way to the mats for the Gifts. Going for The Bifrost for sure now.

PS we tried again later that evening and spend another 100g on Greatswords but no luck so we stopped trying and farm the rest of it the longer way.

With over 1k rare greatswords tried, I have approximately a chance of 18% to get an exotic out of 4 rares. This is similar to the data done with 30k greatswords on reddit. 18% is the mark you should be aiming for.

I’ve been doing MF once my bank is filled with rares/exo weaps since Nov 2011 and only 3 nights ago i got lucky with The Colossus and now I’ve made it into Jugg

Rammmuel.1806:

So I’ve been saving up gold for precursors and I’m going for the spark. As most of you might know, the spark costs 600g on the market. That’s slot of g. I have about 117 right now and using the mystic forge seems like the easiest way. My options are to get 250 rare daggers off the tp and craft them or get about 60 exotics. With the exotics, every time will give a exotic back but 250 rares is a lot of rares. What do you recommend doing? Thanks

advice in 3 easy steps.

1. save up gold.
2. DO NOT MYSTIC TOILET
3. buy precursor.

(this is based on my assumption that your not a TP tycoon judging by how much gold you have and the way you explain it.)

From the posts above, it seems that the MF is hit or miss. Here’s a question, if someone decides to try the MF for a specific precursor, does it matter what exotics are put in? I.e. if I am going for a greatsword, do I only put in exotic greatswords? also is it 4 swords or 3 and some MF stones? Thanks for any help.

Got zap by mfing rare swords <60 g all together . Originally was gonna make predator but 30 swords went cheap on the tp one day so said why not.

The key is to limit yourself. It’s extremely easy to have 1 round that rewards several exotics and then keep going and end with nothing. Then you end up like some of the players here who spent 600 gold with nothing to show.

I’d say dungeons daily to throw those exotics in on a normal basis. When mf daily comes then use gold for like a pack worth, then stop until next daily.

As for the mystic stones, yes you can use them and have a chance to get a precursor HOWEVER the outcome weapon type is randomly picked regard what 3 you put in

Ie if you put 3 rare spears and stone you could get back a exotic bow

If your gonna go that route choose the cheapest rares or exotic

Edit: I saw your other question. If you want want a specific type of weapon then yes you need to put 4 of the same weapon type. Otherwise outcome is chosen at random

I think the point is that the MF constantly has nothing to show, but the occasional named exo’s and some generics. This is what continually bugs me about the MF, I drop in 4 random L80 rares and seen orange instead of yellow in return, the excitement is there but I know I’m just being played for a sucker if I keep going.

“A wise gambler knows when to quit, and when his luck has run out”. Gamble only what you can afford. I do it for the shiggles with 4 cheap rares and see what happens, but I know my luck is so crap it won’t make a difference whether the result is worth 30s or 2-3g… it’ll never be a pre.

It takes around 250 attempt to make a precursor with the mystic forge. Still the drop rate for them is so low that it tends to be RNG. Overall I would save up your money first, then consider if you want to risk it. ~250 attempt, ~35s per rare, 1.4G per attempt, ~350g per random precursor.

You will save money, on average, by throwing rares into the forge rather than buying a precursor outright. The variance on the amount of money you will spend before you get one is huge, however, and margins have been tightening steadily for months. At this point, I would recommend simply saving your money up to buy a precursor rather than gamble for one in the forge – gambling for one is too much risk for the potential reward if you are not already sitting on thousands of gold.

Ulion.5476:

It takes around 250 attempt to make a precursor with the mystic forge. Still the drop rate for them is so low that it tends to be RNG. Overall I would save up your money first, then consider if you want to risk it. ~250 attempt, ~35s per rare, 1.4G per attempt, ~350g per random precursor.

Is that 250 attempts figure real, or just a guess/estimate? Also, is that using mystic forge stones, or not?

It’s a guesstimate. People throw thousands of rares into the forge with zero return, other than the odd named exotics (Zommoros’ way of taunting you into keeping going till you hit a pre).

Based on real-life experience, it could take thousands of attempts with random rares, or even exotics. But RNG…

DeShadowWolf.6854:

Is that 250 attempts figure real, or just a guess/estimate? Also, is that using mystic forge stones, or not?

It’s a guess that’s off by about a factor of 3.

I think 250 attempts using an exotic is fair.

DeShadowWolf.6854:

Is that 250 attempts figure real, or just a guess/estimate? Also, is that using mystic forge stones, or not?

Valandil Dragonhart.2371:

It’s a guesstimate. People throw thousands of rares into the forge with zero return, other than the odd named exotics (Zommoros’ way of taunting you into keeping going till you hit a pre).

Based on real-life experience, it could take thousands of attempts with random rares, or even exotics. But RNG…

One of my friend sells precursors and has EVERY legendary because of that. That was his average of attempts to make a precursor. So far it has been accurate for me. I have made 3 precursor that way.

So can you elaborate a bit on your method of dumping 1000 rares into the toilet? Are you doing them all in one session or over a set period of time? Are the rares all the same make (daggers, GS, staves, etc.) or are they mixed?

I think for greatswords and staves, in particular, you’ll find they’re about 40s minimum to throw into the toilet in vast quantities. I think I’d rather craft them from sundry materials.

Vol.7601:

I think 250 attempts using an exotic is fair.

Yeah, 1 per 250 attempts using exotics would be a pretty conservative estimate. 1 in 200 is probably safe, but you’re pushing the margins to assume that.

1 per 250 attempts with rares is so obviously wrong that it’s hardly worth mentioning; even if all you have is the 10,000 gold livestream data (11 precursors out of 1891 total exotics) you have more than enough to dismiss it without a second glance.

Valandil Dragonhart.2371:

So can you elaborate a bit on your method of dumping 1000 rares into the toilet? Are you doing them all in one session or over a set period of time? Are the rares all the same make (daggers, GS, staves, etc.) or are they mixed?

I think for greatswords and staves, in particular, you’ll find they’re about 40s minimum to throw into the toilet in vast quantities. I think I’d rather craft them from sundry materials.

Well I dumped them all for one attempt. So I buy 1000 rares (~300g) and dump them into the mystic forge. I only mix up the weapon type if I believe that precursor is not worthwhile to get (venom, rage, so on). Using the same weapon type ensures that you will have a chance to get that precursor. Mixing up the weapon types you can get anything. If you dump 1000 rares into the mystic forge over a months worth of time I feel like I will not be as lucky. Still you always have a low low chance of getting a precursor even if you do ti that way.

Ensign.2189:

Vol.7601:

I think 250 attempts using an exotic is fair.

Yeah, 1 per 250 attempts using exotics would be a pretty conservative estimate. 1 in 200 is probably safe, but you’re pushing the margins to assume that.

assuming at least 1g per exotic, that would still be 800g for the cheapest precursor. if it was anywhere around 200+ average, then the prices of the precursors on tp would be at least twice of what they are now.

I have heard using exotic gets a better chance at getting a precursor than rares. but it is to expensive for me to test that out.

Astralporing.1957:

Ensign.2189:

Vol.7601:

I think 250 attempts using an exotic is fair.

Yeah, 1 per 250 attempts using exotics would be a pretty conservative estimate. 1 in 200 is probably safe, but you’re pushing the margins to assume that.

assuming at least 1g per exotic, that would still be 800g for the cheapest precursor. if it was anywhere around 200+ average, then the prices of the precursors on tp would be at least twice of what they are now.

At 1g per exotic, it would be 601g for 200 attempts.

Just saying…

Hmm, point. Somehow forgot about that tiny fact of it returning an exotic as well
It does change the calculation into something more believable.

Remember, 1 in 200 is a pretty conservative estimate. The data I have is 55 precursors out of 8,975 exotics, which gives an average of about 1 in 160. That number lines up pretty well with anecdotal and price data, so I’m inclined to believe the true value is close to that, but you can make your own inferences.

Decided to start trying my luck in the MF with rare greatswords, started this week and i thought i was lucky when i got dawn, a few days ago, but then this happened today….within a minute..

Sororita.3465:

Decided to start trying my luck in the MF with rare greatswords, started this week and i thought i was lucky when i got dawn, a few days ago, but then this happened today….within a minute..

Its RNG and good rolls happen. 2 days ago, during our reset raid in wvw with around 30 people, 3 precursors dropped during 4 hours.

All 3 dropped for the same person.

Wanze.8410:

Sororita.3465:

Decided to start trying my luck in the MF with rare greatswords, started this week and i thought i was lucky when i got dawn, a few days ago, but then this happened today….within a minute..

Its RNG and good rolls happen. 2 days ago, during our reset raid in wvw with around 30 people, 3 precursors dropped during 4 hours.

All 3 dropped for the same person.

>,_< (cry)

If I’m going for the leaf of kudzu, can I only get that by combining 4 longbows, or will any rares do?

Niith.9274:

If I’m going for the leaf of kudzu, can I only get that by combining 4 longbows, or will any rares do?

If you throw in 4 longbows, the outcome will always be a longbow (and potentially kudzu).
If you throw in 4 random weapon, the outcome will always be a random weapon (and potentially kudzu but at a much lower rate).