Guild Wars 2

So this question is towards people who have made their legendary weapon. I have been playing for a while now and have been working towards making the legendary weapon Bifrost. I have just about everything I need to make it except a few mystic clovers and the precursor.

Some people say to just save up and but it and others say to use the mystic forge. I have also read stuff about ones that could drop from different events but it is very rare.

My question is how everyone got their precursor weapon? I am wondering which method is better.

Any tips are also greatly appreciated. Thank you.

General rule is: it is much safer to buy precursor off tp. The variance on the forge rng is so big, you can reasonably expect to throw in the forge way over precursor’s market value and still get nothing. You might get it on the first try, of course, but assuming you will be lucky is not generally a good strategy.
This is especially true in case of precursors for less popular legendaries – those are much cheaper to buy than to produce (as they are usually made only as a byproduct of aiming for something else).
The only situation where it might be sensible to use MF is if you have enough gold to massproduce precursors (we’re talking here 5-digit values in gold – or greater). And even then you might be especially unlucky.

Wasted 300g in the mystic forge. Have played 3000 hours and never got a single precursor drop.

Just buy one from TP man, save yourself the headache. Precursor crafting isn’t coming for a long while so the prices of precursors aren’t going to drop any time soon.

4,2k hours played and +1k gold down the mystic forge and no precursors to show for it.

If you really want to get the precursor then it’s much easier and most likely cheaper to just save the money needed to buy it directly from the TP.

Got mine dusk for 680g out of TP. I cant imagine I would take this money and throw it into the MF and nothing would come out of it. Are you willing to take this risk?

I generally just do daily speed clears of several dungeons. I use the tokens from them to flush, and every week i’ll craft a couple weapons from spare mats i get from dungeons and flush those. Slow and unreliable, but that way i’m saving money while trying to flush at the same time.

Went to WvW for 10 minutes, tagged a random guy and Dawn dropped.

Rng gonna rng.

The precursors I have gotten. Bought 4, mystic forged 1(with rares), and 3 from wvw kills(mostly solo). The average of attempt per precursor from the guy I know in the precursor market (one of those people that has 12 legendaries for his character) and all of the reddit/forums posts. 250 attempts with rares and 160 attempts with exotics. That is say 1.4g per rare attempt (35s rares) and 4g per exotic attempt (1g exotics). So a 0.6% chance with exotics and a 0.4% chance with rares good luck :P.

Precursor crafting got delayed (again), so you should probably save up for the pre you need. I bought mine on the TP after 3 months of saving towards it, it can be done a lot faster depending on cost of pre and if you can refrain from spending. The latter didn’t work for me, as I was spending g along the way to gear alts, even bought T3 cultural. You can also try a risk-free method of gambling by burning through your T5 mats stockpile and crafting rare staves to throw in MF. Plenty of mithrill and elder wood around the 65-80 maps, and it rains T5 mats more then T6 from mobs drop. All you need is 350 in Artificer I think. And as someone else suggested, you can also do dungeons, save the 1.5g per run for buying pre but use the tokens on gear to throw in the forge. One way or another you’ll have your pre

Out of my 5 legendaries, I bought 4 precursors and used 1 from a drop.

Although, I have picked up/gambled quite a few precursors which helped indirectly fund them.

http://imgur.com/a/csqYt

Save up to buy it off the TP. I did probably 100 forge attempts with rares for the Legend, and 100 (all random inputs) for any precursor, just for kicks and got none. I know, small samples done intentionally because I wasn’t about to risk 500g+ on a precursor that cost that much. After getting Bifrost and Kraitkin done, buying precursors off the TP, Dusk dropped out of a champ box sitting on an alt I hadn’t played on in 2 weeks. RNG is a fickle creature.

I’d simply avoid the forge altogether and run events or champ trains instead, as either way the chances are ridiculously small that you’ll get a precursor. At least if you’re farming in some way, you’re gaining money rather than gambling it away. Enough people forge rares/exos that the TP price of the precursors tends to be a function of the average number of forge attempts it takes to get it, so you really don’t lose out that much using the TP.

TLDR: Forge if you’re feeling crazy lucky, otherwise you will probably lose out. It’s much safer to buy off the TP and even if prices rise, you have a target. It’s not like the forge where 1000 failed attempts gets you no closer to the precursor.

I guess I got lucky with the MF. I crafted about 100 level 80 rare staves and started dropping them into the forge. On the 9th attempt (36 staves in) I got The Legend. I’ve had some incredible luck in the game so I’m not sure who to thank for that. Just sharing my story. From what others have said it sounds like it’s much safer to just buy directly from the TP.

I personally saved up and bought dusk for 703g on TP, was I broke after? Sure. Did it take me a long time to save up? Sure. But I sure as he’ll didn’t blow all my gold on the forge. I save up any rare gs I find from events, dungeons, roaming, etc and use them in the forge, but never spend actual gold to do it. The rng gods don’t smile upon me for that to work.

I have had one precursor drop in 3,000 hours of gameplay, so obviously relying on drops is terrible because you know that when one finally does drop it’s going to be The Bard. As for the Mystic Forge, if you put in level 80 rares there is something like a 0.3% chance of getting a precursor out. So on average that is over 300 attempts per precursor. But it gets worse. You are only after one so you put yourself hugely at the mercy of the RNG. After 300 attempts the chances of you coming out with nothing are about 1 in 3.

If you want a guarantee go via the trading post.

Also, ouch if you have already made your Gift of Color.

i got my hunter first try in mystic forge so i am just that dam lucky <<<<< but besides that in my 2k hours of play time i saw one precursor dropped in the world which was a trident. i suggest just to farm the gold to buy the weapon who knows while farming a precursor may drop