Guild Wars 2

Been playing since the start of GW2 (and GW1 for that matter) and have decided to work slowly towards a legendary (Kudzu). Approach will be to farm materials, do boss events and throw rare drops into the forge. I realise that I might well be very old by the time that this approach works (if it ever does) but are there any things that I should definitely be doing to improve my chances or reduce the time taken.

I’m not looking for a silver bullet and I don’t have the time to invest in game to do any intensive dungeon running or TP flipping but I don’t want to miss out on something that would make the process a bit quicker.

Thanks.

The only thing you must really concentrate on are Mystic Clovers and maybe dungeon Gift needed for your weapon. All other mats will come eventually in your bank.

Throwing rares/exos into forge in pointless IMO. You may get some precursor but chances are close to 0. When I decided to make Bolt it took me 4 months of mat & gold farming. Then I just bought the precursor and made Bolt.

Yeah – I knew the precursor would be the sticking point! I guess I could salvage / sell the rares rather than chucking them in the forge but the optimist in me still hopes that I’ll push the button and a precursor will drop out.

Guess I should have started this process a bit earlier but I’ve been so embroiled in doing content (have over 7,000 AP) that I didn’t really have the focus. I do have a few of the materials that I will need as a result of that but sounds like buying the precursor might be the wise option. Just hope that GW3 doesn’t beat me to it!!

Thanks for the advice.

DON’T……
don’t even start anything before you actually acquired precursor.

You will be perfectly happy at 0% legendary progression with or without precursor.
You will be extremely unhappy at 99% progression but missing a precursor and not able to pull one from TP.
If you are very close to have enough fund for buying a precursor, sell the T5, T6 materials to get your fund, (don’t sell lodestone of couse). Once you have your precursor, the rest is just a matter of time.

God Speed!

I hear what you’re saying … but I’m going to have to start sometime! :-)

Added my IGN in case any other like minded individuals fancy teaming up! :-)
Might pass the time a bit quicker.

A group of friends to do dungeons or fractals together helps tremendously. But a legendary starts with the precursor. Without precursor, it is out of reach. Don’t depend on the luck with the mystic forge. Get gold and buy it from the TP instead.

I did such a “casual acquisition” of my Bifrost. Perhaps it could help if you read my story. It was not straight and up to the point, as you will see…

I am a packrat. If I have an item of uncertain value, I keep it. For example an exotic that I could either sell for only a few gold or keep it for myself for the skin. I even made a mule guild to store these items.

With material, it is the same. I never sell material until the storage is full. I bought a stack expansion with Euro (no ingame gold). 500 is a must, because for many materials you need more than 1 stack.

One year ago, with 800 gold in cash and a bank account filled with items and material, I felt I could get a legendary weapon. I wanted The Predator for my Engineer, since the other precursors were either too expensive or a weapon I didn’t play. My T6 trophies were about 50-100 per stack, so I thought I need not much to complete the stacks. T6 material was full.

So I ordered The Hunter in the TP. At that time you could buy it for 500 gold, highest order was 430, and I ordered it for 380. 10 offers were above mine. A week later I got it.

Then I started to order the remaining T6 trophies. Unfortunately, at this time all the T6 material took a huge jump because ascended equipment was intruduced an and everyone started to level crafting to 500. I didn’t get many of my T6 orders. For re-ordering at the new price I didn’t had the money.

I pondered what to do, and a week later I decided to sell The Hunter with a 50 gold profit and forget about legendary weapons.

I still took care and saved certain material. For example, I saved a stack of unidentified dye that was needed for The Bifrost.

With my guild, we played higher leveled fractals up to 49 and a lot of dungeons. One fractal or dungon almost every day, and more. I used event timers to visit mega boss events. Salvaged all blue and green loot, salvaged rare armor and sold rare weapons. Salvaged or sold exotic drops depending on price, skin and runes. Often the salvaged parts together are more valuable than the exotic piece alone. I stopped throwing rares into the mystic forge, because I saw this a waste of material.

We never did speed runs, just casual runs with a group of about 10 guild members who took part in the runs. Someone came up with “Hey, let’s do Crucible. Or whatever you want. Anyone?”, and there we went. We had no plan, we just did what popped up.

6 months ago, with about 1400 gold in cash, I tried to explain in our guild TS how to buy and sell drops smart on the TP. I said: “You alway buy from the lowest seller or sell to the highest offer. Don’t do this. Always order at the highest offer or a bit below. Always sell at the lowest seller or a bit higher. The prices float. You will get your trade”.

As a joke, I added: “Look, The Legend costs 1000 gold if you buy it. Order it instead, and you pay 200 less. I show you.”
Then I ordered it at about 780 (don’t know if these were the exact figures, but you get the point). There were about 10 offers above mine.

I didn’t expect to see this succeed, but the very next day I was the proud owner of The Legend. I were able to flip it back with no loss, but I decided to make The Bifrost for my ele, which was the only legendary weapon I wanted to make at that time, if ever.

I detected that I secretly saved much of the required material. Not consciously, but somewhat secretly. You know, I am a packrat. I just had to order some missing things. I had enough karma, I had enough dye vials, I had enough WvW tokens, I had explored the world map and so on.

At the time some T6 trophies were still missing, while I still had a some full stacks from my first try. I sold my surplus stacks of T5 and some of my duplicate exotic weapons. I did not need any ectos, because I got enough from salvaging (about 4 stacks).

A week later all my T6 orders were fulfilled and I had all the individual material to craft every gift. Then I started crafting them and in the end made The Bifrost.

Don’t even think about starting until you have the precursor.

I have one serious legendary and two casual ones. The reason I call the other two casual is because the pres for both were very cheap (<120g) so you really can work on it in a casual way, which is why I have them at all. Saving to buy a pre is about as much fun as saving for a big purchase in real life, and same as real life it gets less fun the lower your income is. Leaf of Kudzu was almost 1000g last I checked (yesterday), so that’s going to be a big fat grind.

So here’s my advice. Play the game normally. Make yourself a guild bank and use it to start a pre fund. Put as much money in as you feel comfortable with. If you get sick of putting money in, like you want to buy yourself something else, just leave it alone for awhile. Who knows how long this will take, but aside from converting gems to gold that seems to me like the best way to make this work. Don’t think about it too much, and don’t check the price too often, maybe every 100g or so.

Don’t sell anything you will need to make it later, cause it will basically always be a loss. Casuals can’t afford to just throw away money to tp fees.

Nice work! :-)

I think it’s fair to say that I am starting from a much much lower base than you in terms of gold. :-)

I have used what gold I earnt in game so far to kit out my 8 level 80 characters – usually with OK stuff but I always saw a legendary weapon as unattainable (which in reality it probably will be!) and so bought cheaper stuff rather than saving towards that goal. I have tended to focus on getting achievements rather than getting rich anyway I suppose so far.

I’m not sure I’ll ever reach the goal but it’s something to work towards whilst waiting for new content.

Don’t throw away your rares into the mystic toilet, save every single copper and avoid gambling, it can give you wonders but it can also slow down your path to the ground and earn you huge frustration and disappointment.

Do the daily world boss circuit for the guaranteed rares.

Salvage the armor for Ecto (and silk for the light armor) until you have enough for your legendary (250), then start selling them.

Forge the weapons. Specifically, forge your longbows together and forge everything else separately. Check the price on Greatswords, Daggers, Staves, and Swords before you forge them. If they are selling for 60s or more, sell them instead.

If you get an exotic promotion, check the price on the TP.
If the price is over 4g, sell it, otherwise hang onto it until you have enough to forge those.

You should also run dungeons for gold generation and tokens (you’ll need Twilight Arbor tokens for one of your gifts). The tokens can be spent on additional rares/exotics for forging.

Also note that those masterwork (green) items have a 20% chance to be promoted into a rare (yellow) item in the Mystic Forge, so every 16 masterworks is basically 1 free rare, if you are willing to put in the effort to forge them.

- Do all of your daily and monthly. They will give you Laurel that you can transfer into tier 6 fine crafting material.
- If you can do guild mission, it will usually give you about 8-12 rare in 30min-1hour are they are fun with friends and guildmate.
- Dungeon like CoF and CoE will give you the most rare of your token.
- If you have some alts, you can post them in Orr for gathering run to get your Ancient Woods and Omnomberry.
- If you don’t have your 2 crafting profession at 400 already. gw2crafts.net will allow you do that with the minimum amount of gold.
- If you have a good amount of skill points. Some tier 5 can be forge into tier 6 with a saving. Not all of them, you gonna need to take a minute to check the market.

I completely disagree with not starting until you have a precursor. This is what I have done, and it has proven to work extremely well.

You will spend weeks/months collecting materials, particularly the T6 material stacks as well as map completion. All the while you are collecting (or farming) for those, run dungeons to get gold. Ideally, run as many paths per reset as you can – particularly Arah – to maximize your gold acquisition.

By the time you have all of the necessary materials, you’ll likely have enough gold to buy your precursor. Effectively, you get all of the components you need at about the same time.

Additionally, in this time frame, you have a (low) chance of getting a precursor on a drop anyway. If you get the one you want, awesome! If not, you can sell it to buy the one you need.

I would also crush all drops you get. You need the ectos from rare/exotics, and once you have a 250 stack, you can salvage your ectos for dust. In most cases, when you get an exotic drop, the rune/sigil is worth more than the item itself so it makes sense to crush it anyway.

With most other armor items, you’ll get cloth materials. You can either sell those, silk is enormously profitable, or save them to make ascended gear.

Mike Hawk.4835:

I completely disagree with not starting until you have a precursor. This is what I have done, and it has proven to work extremely well.

You will spend weeks/months collecting materials, particularly the T6 material stacks as well as map completion. All the while you are collecting (or farming) for those, run dungeons to get gold. Ideally, run as many paths per reset as you can – particularly Arah – to maximize your gold acquisition.

By the time you have all of the necessary materials, you’ll likely have enough gold to buy your precursor. Effectively, you get all of the components you need at about the same time.

Additionally, in this time frame, you have a (low) chance of getting a precursor on a drop anyway. If you get the one you want, awesome! If not, you can sell it to buy the one you need.

I would also crush all drops you get. You need the ectos from rare/exotics, and once you have a 250 stack, you can salvage your ectos for dust. In most cases, when you get an exotic drop, the rune/sigil is worth more than the item itself so it makes sense to crush it anyway.

With most other armor items, you’ll get cloth materials. You can either sell those, silk is enormously profitable, or save them to make ascended gear.

I agree. When I did mine, I gathered all the mats before the precursor, and it worked out fine for me. Granted, my precursor was a gift so…

(Yeah, I’m still floored by it, and will bring it up every chance I get :P)

Most rares should be salvaged for ectos.

Swords, greatswords, staves and daggers should be sold on the tp.

If you really want to play the MF throw longbows into the forge (masterwork as well as rare and exotic), but only if you enjoy the feeling of buying a lottery ticket.

T6 mats are going to be another sticking point. Temple events on cursed shore are good for heavy mouldy bags. Hopefully you’ll end up with enough t5 mats that you can occasional craft a batch of rare longbows and increase your chances of a MF drop from nothing to almost nothing.

Learn the Twilight Arbour run early if you haven’t already. You will need to run it at least 8 times, but do it more as dungeons are a great source of raw gold.

enlightened.5396:

Been playing since the start of GW2 (and GW1 for that matter) and have decided to work slowly towards a legendary (Kudzu). Approach will be to farm materials, do boss events and throw rare drops into the forge. I realise that I might well be very old by the time that this approach works (if it ever does) but are there any things that I should definitely be doing to improve my chances or reduce the time taken.

I’m not looking for a silver bullet and I don’t have the time to invest in game to do any intensive dungeon running or TP flipping but I don’t want to miss out on something that would make the process a bit quicker.

Thanks.

Check the Full Material List here:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Kudzu

Sell everything you have except for the items listed there.

Sell rares if they are worth more than ectos, salvage if not.

Also, look into converting excess karma and skill points to gold.

Contrary to other suggestions, do the 77 mystic clovers first before anything else.

Ectos, karma, skill points & mystic coins are easy to earn with casual activities like doing daily bosses. After mystic clovers you can proceed to monetizing your karma(don’t forget obsidian shards for gift of mastery) and skill points(don’t forget Bloodstone Shard for gift of mastery).

Accumulate gold for the precursor or whatever mats you need, it’s your choice with regards to what you want to buy first.

It’s also your choice if you wanna gather stuff like wood, omnomberries etc. or buy them.

Also, prioritize WvW for map completion or you might get stuck.

Do the 100 Icy Runestones last.

Thanks for the advice folks … food for thought!

If you don’t have the time to run dungeons on a daily basis, you could keep an eye out for when new updates hit and new stuff is added to the game. Most of the times there are ways to make some quick and easy cash.

For example – the Mawdrey backpiece thingie: when it first came out people saw that you needed certain types of special foods in order to get it; but you needed 8 pieces of each food and you can only make one per day per account: it was time gated. But you could sell these foods on the TP, so the people who wanted the item fast would pay top buck to get them; as a result, each piece of food could be sold for over 10g on the TP, but the ingredients to make them cost a lot less, resulting in an amazing daily proffit if you were willing to craft them and sell. This meant that you could not make your own backpiece thingie yet, but the cash flowed like crazy. This is only an example, but look for stuff like this and, if you don’t need it yourself, sell for top buck. Such things don’t last long, however, as prices drop constantly after release, but there is a good window to get some cash in.

Also, stop throwing stuff at the MF. You are better off salvaging the rares for ectos or selling them if they are expensive enough. Yes, people get lucky, but a lot more people lose way more in the end than the price of the precursor. Of course, it’s your choice. But, as the old saying goes, a bird in the hand is worth more than two in the bush.

GL.

First off: you are on a better way with Kudzu than with other Legendaries since it’s a rather cheap one. Granted, the precursor is rather expensive (900g or so), but if you keep farming and selling your stuff constantly, you will have your 1k g or so in a couple of months. It IS a legendary at the end. And Legendary needs work, I hope you can comply.

The rest happens naturally. Salvage everything but rares and exotics that are worth more than one ecto. Also check the sigils/runes of random exotics. Sometimes they are worth quite a lot.

About mystic forge gambling. I wouldn’t rule it out. It all depends on how you handle loss. If it makes you smash your keyboard, don’t even think about going that way.
But if you are patient and don’t get upset when you fail, it can be very rewarding when you eventually (if you do) get lucky ^^
Just never kitten away 500 g at once. Do it in small doses.

if you play casually (no hard core farming), it may take you 2 years (may be more) for one legendary. the key thing is to get the precursor as fast as possible. forget everything else.

when i made my first legendary, zap was at 450g and t6 mats was around 30s. by the time i made my 4th this week (incinerator), precursors mostly triple in price, yet the t6 mats still around kitten (1.5 times). so you see, the precursor price always go up, if you don’t get it early as possible you’ll never catch up with the price.

so, always aim for the precursor first. even if later you decide not to make the legendary, you can always sell it.

azizul.8469:

when i made my first legendary, zap was at 450g and t6 mats was around 30s. by the time i made my 4th this week (incinerator), precursors mostly triple in price, yet the t6 mats still around kitten (1.5 times). so you see, the precursor price always go up, if you don’t get it early as possible you’ll never catch up with the price.

I strongly disagree with this. Precursor prices were constant for a long period of time and only spiked when the Wardrobe was announced and legendaries were made account bound, making them much, much more desirable. The rise in precursor price was only to be expected, though it was quite huge. But after the initial spike and some market manipulation, the prices have stabilised again and have even dropped slightly. I still giggle at those Dusks that were put for sale at 2000g, I highly doubt those will ever sell. The price of precursors will only increase again if there is another shock like the wardrobe or if the droprate is significantly reduced (from regular drops or from the MF, but I think a MF droprate nerf would have a more drastic impact).

Regardless, I think it is sound advice to get the precursor first due to its high cost, but make sure that along the way you don’t sell your t6 materials; they will pile up slowly while you are making your way to buying the precursor, and when you finally get enough cash for the pre, you will have a good chunk of the needed materials.