Guild Wars 2

Ive been looking into making legendary weapons, and Im pretty dissapointed. All you have done is make it so we have to gather insane amounts of mats… Dont you think thats a pretty poor way of doing it? Its like you couldnt be bothered to think of a fun and interesting way of implementing it and just went “stuff it, just make it so people have to use stupid amounts of mats to get em.” thats not a legendary weapon, thats a pain in the butt weapon… The amount of farming/money it would take to gather all those mats is stupid.

There are far better ways of acquiring a legendary weapon that dont seem like a ridiculous farm/grind mission. The way it SHOULD have been implemented is like this…

Each weapon has an epic quest chain taking you all over tyria, a quest chain that can only be acquired when you hit lvl 80. You get messages throughout the game from your herald, (I think it was a herald) you should get a message from him when you hit 80 pointing you in the direction of NPC’s that start the quest chain for each respective weapon. For example…
“greetings, Im writing to inform you that there have been rumors circulating as to the whereabouts of the legendary weapons of tyria. [npc name] is said to have information on the whereabouts of such and such weapon, [npc name] has information on another weapon” and so on…

You could make it so the herald only points you in the direction of npcs that have info on the weapons usable by your class. Then during the quest chain for that specific weapon, you obtain parts of the weapon (artifacts) from each part of the quest as a reward or boss drop. Sort of like another story chain, but for endgame. Then once you have completed that quest chain, you have to use each part in the mystic forge along with a REASONABLE amount of mats to revive that pieces power. Then once you have empowered all of the pieces, you then combine those in the mystic forge to create a TRUE legendary weapon.

At the moment, legendary weapons are the “korean mmo” of weapons in guild wars… a huge grind/farm fest. As it stands, Im probably not gonna bother with them, cause to me it doesnt seem worth all the time and effort. But if it was incorporated into a quest chain… It would make the experience and road to acquiring your legendary weapons actually fun. I would happily play through a huge quest chain to get em, and Im sure that most if not everyone would prefer it that way too.

In place of a ridiculous number of expensive mats (I understand you made the numbers so high as to make them difficult to obtain) you could make it so the quest chains were long, challengeing, and pretty difficult.

A weapon isnt legendary imo cause of the umpteen amount of mats you have to gather, but because of how much of a challenge it is to obtain. And gathering/buying mats isnt a challenge. Thats only a challenge of how much mind numbing boring gameplay you can stand.

Agree.

To be honest, I reckon our character’s shouldn’t be aware of Legendary weapons until we have Max Weapon Master for that weapon (i.e. Greatsword for Twilight).

Maybe a treasure hunt with riddles that makes us gather unique parts (ANet have already shown that they can make unique nodes, so this would prevent a guide being made). Then we got to take to the core of Mount Maelstrom while the event is going on to forge into the pre-cursor.

Then you got to ‘temper and quench’ the pre-cursor by:

• Imbibing it with the essence of the most powerful creatures (Dragons)
• Collecting ancient artifacts of power from the deepest places (Dungeons)
• Decorating it with the skill of a Master Craftsman (Crafting)
• Show all of the good deeds you have done all around, and for everyone (Karma + World Competion) and the skill you’ve aquired on your journeys (Skill Points).

In short, show that you have done everything the game has to offer

This is where Legendary weapons would benefit from a place in the lore, since that would dictate how you’d go about restoring it to Legendary status (i.e. Twilight needs to be forged during the night, while Sunrise needs to be forged during the day. Minstrel would need music played to it [different for each player], Kudzu taken to its root, and Bifrost taken to the place where it is said that Earth was connected to the God’s).

Well note something , if there was really some ubber quest or some other crazy way to get them , we would never see many of them implemented … end of story. Too much cost to simple add 1 weapon few would even get anyway.

The way it is now , there is still hope we will see other kinds of the same weapon , like the greatsword.

If i had to pick , i prefer to have many kinds to pick , over an cool quest to get 1 i dont want anyway.

That would be pretty neat, though Nox has a point; something like that would make it a lot harder to add more legendary stuff should they decide to.

@TheDaiBish
“In short, show that you have done everything the game has to offer”

The problem I have with them already is that by the time you get them you’ve done everything. Which leaves me wondering whats the point in getting it then if there’s nothing else to do?
Now, I’m not saying I think they should be easy to get, they are legendary after all, but at this point they’re like an item you get in a cutscene after the final boss of a game and then end credits roll without ever getting to use it.
At that point it’s do WvW or stand around LA to show it off, and I don’t do PvP, so why bother?

Nox Aeterna.2965:

Well note something , if there was really some ubber quest or some other crazy way to get them , we would never see many of them implemented … end of story. Too much cost to simple add 1 weapon few would even get anyway.

The way it is now , there is still hope we will see other kinds of the same weapon , like the greatsword.

If i had to pick , i prefer to have many kinds to pick , over an cool quest to get 1 i dont want anyway.

Doesn’t necessarily have to be that way, since there are already things in the world that could make the process more interesting:

Say, for example, each character is assigned 24 random co-ordinates on the map (at Points of Interests, maybe Vista’s for visual clues) per weapon (1 for each zone) when they are created. Them co-ordinates then create the first clue and exclusive chests for that character when they reach max rank in Weapon Master.

So, for example, I make my character, get to 80, get max rank in Greatsword, and I get my first clue:

“Behold, he who befriended the enemy and shook of the tyrants of his people”.

I go to examine the statue of Pyre Fierceshot, and there’s a chest in that area that contains 1 part and another clue, indicating to one of the next part. It’s a picture of s skull and a waterfall, so I head off to the Pirate jumping puzzle. At the end of that, there’s another piece, clue ect.

That part would be completely unique for each character. Make a clue for each Point of Interest and Vista and make the clues assigned and the order completely at random.

Next part would be somewhat linear (kill dragons to get unique item, kill explorable mode bosses to get unique item, ect ect), and then the next bit would be totally dependent on the weapon, and the ‘lore’ for it.

For example, Twilight was Grenth’s weapon against Dwayna and Sunrise was Dwayna’s weapon against Grenth (work with me here). So while you got the same pre-cursor (Greatsword of Potential), depending on how you finish it would depend on the skin, meaning they could implement more than one skin for each weapon.

ScribeTheMad.7614:

The problem I have with them already is that by the time you get them you’ve done everything. Which leaves me wondering whats the point in getting it then if there’s nothing else to do?

Because by the time you’ve done everything the game has to offer (and I’m talking about every dungeon, every big boss event ect. Hell, make it hardcore so you need holiday event items like the book we got), chances are there’s going to be another content patch out, giving you stuff to do.

Legendary weapons would be kept with the core part (so the world we have now) and in expacs, the first released part of that, ensuring that you’ll still have something to do after that isn’t part of the Legendary process.

Well, I dont think it would be that difficult to implement. If they managed to implement a one time halloween event, and are already creating a new one time event, then surely they could implement the quest idea. What I was thinking of wasnt adding new areas or anything, no new instanceing for each part of the quest. I meant actualy having them as world events, or using other instances even. Giving you the option to enter CoF solo for part of the quest for example. The only thing they would realy need to do is add new scripting and npc’s, not create new areas or anything. Hell, you could even have it without anything but the new npc dialogue added. You could make it so you have to go complete a specific dungeon to get a “legendary artifact” which the end boss drops, which would work considering how each player gets their own loot. My thinking was to have a varied combination of tasks. Completing world quests unique to your character, completing dungeon quests… I do like the idea of a puzzle/treasure hunt though… Maybe that could be how you acquire some of the parts as well as the quests. For example… During a quest you hear of a powerful mad sorcerer who had got his hands on and hidden one of the artifacts. Then once you have worked out his clues and completed the treasure hunt, and you find the final location and interact with the object, it spawns a guardian of the artifact that you have to kill and loot to obtain said artifact..
And like I said, your herald would point you in the direction of multiple npc’s meaning you choose which weapon to quest for. Your not tied down to questing for one specific item.
And if you dual wield for example… You could go complete the chain again by going and starting dialogue with the weapons respective npc again. Think of it as a long world wide event chain, which is only triggered once you have completed the prerequisite quest in the previous zone.

And I dont like the idea of having to do everything else in the game first… That seems like a pointless requirement… “so, Ive got my legendary weapon… now what do I do with it?…”
Tools arent much use if you’ve already completed the jobs you need em for lol.
And sure there will be new expansions in time, but who wants to wait for new content to get the benefits of their new weapon? Plus with new expansions comes new more powerful weapons. And using items from unique seasonal events to make them is a bit extreme. Not everyone is able to make it on during the event. It would make legendaries inaccessible to a lot of players. Plus it would mean giving up those cool items that you only have 1 chance to get, like the book from the halloween event.

Like I said, the point is to make them hard to obtain by the dificulty of the quests and puzzles, not by having to use crazy mats.

+1. Call me crazy, but legendaries are too easy to get. Someone either does it the right way and gathers all the materials or someone if they have the funds and wana be lazy, can actually buy every single material and essentially buy a “Legendary”. The way it is now gives me no motivation to make one. I wana have an adventure with some story telling to get my end-game pieces not grind it out.

Those wanting the requirement of maxing the appropriate weapon master skill are forgettign some huge problems with this.

Maxing shield is such an uphill battle that it requires purposefully wasting a skill to get killing blows. Yes, WASTING a skill. The guardian one is for aoe tag damage and for applying protection (best saved for when a mob is winding up an attack you cant avoid or don’t want to move from your spot) while the warrior skill is best used for interupting a skill rather than as a go to skill. Secondary skills for both cause no damage. Using the skills to kill something is a waste of a skill if it isn’t the last mob in a pack or a solo kill.

What about warrior’s that use warhorn? Hint: neither skill does damage, thus can’t get weaponmaster for the horn.

Weaponmaster stats are also shared across all characters further making this a BAD choice. Legendary weapons are designed to be character based (hence why map completion is required).

What would work…is to make hints in the game on blacksmiths hidden around the world. You find the blacksmiths (let these be static, the wiki can even say which blacksmith is linked to which weapon). Go to the blackmith at level 80, after having totally completed the storyline. Upon reaching the blacksmith they send you out to a randomly generated location in the world, all you get is a vista like picture as a clue of where you have to go. You go out to the location and when you get within 600 range of the exact spot a chest appears. You do this 4 times, it is always 100% random on where it could send you, just somewhere in the open world. You now have 4 peices of the weapon. Take all 4 to the forge and you create a makeshift version of the weapon, it is inert and unequipable.

Take this to the blacksmith and you will get random tasks (specific events) in the open world that you must complete and get a gold on. This leads us as a means of sending players to low population centers as it would be random, and the low pop sections of the map are more numerous than the high pop. Each task nets a peice of an enchantment, every 4 peices need combined int he forge and taken to the blacksmith. Earn 3 enchantments and the blacksmith sends you to take the inert weapon and the 3 enchantments to the forge. Combine them and you get the first precursor.

Take this back and the blacksmith then tasks you with more events, only now you must do the events with the precursor equiped. here you get 3 enchantments made the same way you did before, and a peice of special material that only drops from one of the world dragons and only if you have a precursor equiped. Combine these in the forge. This creates another peice of the artifact and must be done 3 times. Take these 3 items with the precursor into the forge and finally you have your legendary.

In this way you get the legendary over a period of time, the tasks are always random and you can even add new future zones to the list easily. Everyone has a different path to take and is unable to plan the next step in advance. If you think it is too fast then have the blacksmith only give out one task in a 20 hour period (the reason for not 24 is to prevent people sitting at the blacksmith for 10 min waiting on the timer). This would require over a month of dedicated time (one thing a day) in order to accomplish. For each new weapon just add a new blacksmith randomly in the world…the rest of the task is already there as it is always random and sends people to do events that likely sit undone for days in certain zones.

NinjaEd.3946:

+1. Call me crazy, but legendaries are too easy to get. Someone either does it the right way and gathers all the materials or someone if they have the funds and wana be lazy, can actually buy every single material and essentially buy a “Legendary”. The way it is now gives me no motivation to make one. I wana have an adventure with some story telling to get my end-game pieces not grind it out.

Exactly my point
They should have some form of story tied to them. The path to obtaining them should be a fun epic journey, not another reason for mind numbing farming.
I wouldnt say they are too easy to get… (with the exception of just “buying” them)
But the road to obtaining them is just… Well, its like it was the last thing on the list of things to implement, and they just wanted to get out of work on time and didnt put any thought into it.
employee 1: just make em craftable
employee 2: but they need to be hard to obtain…
employee 1: then just make it so you need insane amounts of mats ~shrugs~

Considering how much thought they have put into other aspects of this game and how innovative they have been, Im surprised and disappointed to see that they chose such a half baked approach to obtaining them.
Legendary weapons should have a legendary means of obtaining them. Gathering stupid amounts of mats arent exactly legendary actions worthy of a hero of tyria.
Would a hero go on a legendary journey to obtain a powerful artifact, or get a job as a labourer to get it?

Runiir.6425:

Those wanting the requirement of maxing the appropriate weapon master skill are forgettign some huge problems with this.

Maxing shield is such an uphill battle that it requires purposefully wasting a skill to get killing blows. Yes, WASTING a skill. The guardian one is for aoe tag damage and for applying protection (best saved for when a mob is winding up an attack you cant avoid or don’t want to move from your spot) while the warrior skill is best used for interupting a skill rather than as a go to skill. Secondary skills for both cause no damage. Using the skills to kill something is a waste of a skill if it isn’t the last mob in a pack or a solo kill.

What about warrior’s that use warhorn? Hint: neither skill does damage, thus can’t get weaponmaster for the horn.

Weaponmaster stats are also shared across all characters further making this a BAD choice. Legendary weapons are designed to be character based (hence why map completion is required).

---

What would work…is to make hints in the game on blacksmiths hidden around the world. You find the blacksmiths (let these be static, the wiki can even say which blacksmith is linked to which weapon). Go to the blackmith at level 80, after having totally completed the storyline. Upon reaching the blacksmith they send you out to a randomly generated location in the world, all you get is a vista like picture as a clue of where you have to go. You go out to the location and when you get within 600 range of the exact spot a chest appears. You do this 4 times, it is always 100% random on where it could send you, just somewhere in the open world. You now have 4 peices of the weapon. Take all 4 to the forge and you create a makeshift version of the weapon, it is inert and unequipable.

Take this to the blacksmith and you will get random tasks (specific events) in the open world that you must complete and get a gold on. This leads us as a means of sending players to low population centers as it would be random, and the low pop sections of the map are more numerous than the high pop. Each task nets a peice of an enchantment, every 4 peices need combined int he forge and taken to the blacksmith. Earn 3 enchantments and the blacksmith sends you to take the inert weapon and the 3 enchantments to the forge. Combine them and you get the first precursor.

Take this back and the blacksmith then tasks you with more events, only now you must do the events with the precursor equiped. here you get 3 enchantments made the same way you did before, and a peice of special material that only drops from one of the world dragons and only if you have a precursor equiped. Combine these in the forge. This creates another peice of the artifact and must be done 3 times. Take these 3 items with the precursor into the forge and finally you have your legendary.

In this way you get the legendary over a period of time, the tasks are always random and you can even add new future zones to the list easily. Everyone has a different path to take and is unable to plan the next step in advance. If you think it is too fast then have the blacksmith only give out one task in a 20 hour period (the reason for not 24 is to prevent people sitting at the blacksmith for 10 min waiting on the timer). This would require over a month of dedicated time (one thing a day) in order to accomplish. For each new weapon just add a new blacksmith randomly in the world…the rest of the task is already there as it is always random and sends people to do events that likely sit undone for days in certain zones.

Now this idea I love… Its pretty much exactly what I was aiming for. And it would be so easy to implement too in comparison to the other ideas we have come up with.
You’ve pretty much taken my idea and refined it.
Awesome idea man. I’d be more than happy if this was how they did it. The only thing I would suggest is having a boss encounter at the end of each “round of crafting.” By which I mean you have to face a guardian of the artifact before you can take it back to the smith and forge it to its next stage.
And as for the hints idea, I like it… You could be walking around and you overhear a conversation between 2 NPC’s… “weaponsmith Daryn was apparently pouring over old texts for some reason, I have no idea why a smith would be so interested in old arcane records…”

That being said, it still needs a story to it. I mean, the weapons should have a story behind them, they are Legendary after all.
Yeah, make the events randomly located… But then make it so the boss encounter I mentioned is in a static and relevant location. For example, a legendary molten sword requires a boss encounter in Mount Maelstrom, or a drop (100% chance) from a boss in CoF. It needs to have a logical story and locations for at least 1 of the items you need to obtain. Maybe you could have all the artifacts scattered and randomly located like we said, but the final piece you gather is from a relevant boss type in a fitting location.

Thank’s Reverant, and I agree. The most jarring aspect of making a legendary weapon…it is has no flavor text. The text you see on the kharma items and such…why don’t the legendaries have their legend on the weapon?!

Having set bosses would be nice, things that make sense.

NinjaEd.3946:

+1. Call me crazy, but legendaries are too easy to get. Someone either does it the right way and gathers all the materials or someone if they have the funds and wana be lazy, can actually buy every single material and essentially buy a “Legendary”. The way it is now gives me no motivation to make one. I wana have an adventure with some story telling to get my end-game pieces not grind it out.

I assume you have one then since it’s so easy to get?

Moving on … I have no real problems with legendaries and how to get them, but I would have liked a less, grindy approach since everything you need is pretty much a grind in itself.

I just saw Sunrise on a player today. It is a nice looking greatsword. Some one in chat was talking to the guy about it, and he said he got the majority of the mats for it by buying game gold. So has it stands right now is probly what most players are doing to get their legendary weapons. Do to the ridiculous amount of things needed just to make one legendary. So yeah I would love to see some other way to get the weapons.

Cloud.7613:

NinjaEd.3946:

+1. Call me crazy, but legendaries are too easy to get. Someone either does it the right way and gathers all the materials or someone if they have the funds and wana be lazy, can actually buy every single material and essentially buy a “Legendary”. The way it is now gives me no motivation to make one. I wana have an adventure with some story telling to get my end-game pieces not grind it out.

I assume you have one then since it’s so easy to get?

Moving on … I have no real problems with legendaries and how to get them, but I would have liked a less, grindy approach since everything you need is pretty much a grind in itself.

I actually don’t own one. Main reason being I already see dozens of people on my server with them and trend analysis shows me, they are too easy. Not this many people would have legendaries already if they were hard to get. Clearly the “Grind” isn’t hard enough or most of these people I find just flat out bought the mats to make them. They are easy to get. Its just repetitive as heck so people claim it is hard but no. Fine line between difficult and boring repitition.

I think the chain shouldn’t be so streamlined.
It’d make more sense if it was a mix of grinding, farming and questing.

1. You get fragments of a recipe from all over the world, in a challenging – not grinding – way.
   The challenge should involve jumping puzzle, and/or an event that scales properly the more people participate, to avoid making it something easily done with a group.
   It should require skill.
2. Once you have all the fragments, they combine into the recipe for the legendary precursor.
3. Sacrificing exotics in the mystic forge get you a rare material of wich you require multiple to craft the precursor – instead of giving you a stupidly tiny chance to obtain the full precursor.
4. Once you have the precursor, a certain NPC scholar will show interest and give you insight on an ancient craft, sharing his knowledge towards obtaining the necessary information.
5. The clues take you to tougher challenges than the precursor, and help you obtain some unique materials that along with a bunch of crafting materials allow you to craft the weapon in them mystic forge.

It must require dedication (thus the grind/farm), but also skill.

Nurvus.2891:

I think the chain shouldn’t be so streamlined.
It’d make more sense if it was a mix of grinding, farming and questing.

1. You get fragments of a recipe from all over the world, in a challenging – not grinding – way.
   The challenge should involve jumping puzzle, and/or an event that scales properly the more people participate, to avoid making it something easily done with a group.
   It should require skill.
2. Once you have all the fragments, they combine into the recipe for the legendary precursor.
3. Sacrificing exotics in the mystic forge get you a rare material of wich you require multiple to craft the precursor – instead of giving you a stupidly tiny chance to obtain the full precursor.
4. Once you have the precursor, a certain NPC scholar will show interest and give you insight on an ancient craft, sharing his knowledge towards obtaining the necessary information.
5. The clues take you to tougher challenges than the precursor, and help you obtain some unique materials that along with a bunch of crafting materials allow you to craft the weapon in them mystic forge.

It must require dedication (thus the grind/farm), but also skill.

Nah, I disagree. The suggestion Runiir made seems the best and most logical so far. Like he said, if it was too quick, then you make it so you can only do 1 “legendary quest” a day, so you do have to put the time in over a period of months. For example… You complete one part, and then a 24 hour “cool down” is put into effect, meaning you cant do another til the next day. This would make Legendaries viable for casual and hardcore players alike, while still having to put long term time and effort into it, thus meaning it takes dedication and skill to do.
The aim is to do away with grinding/farming and have an interesting FUN way of obtaining the weapons that is still challenging. Grinding/farming just kills gameplay. It takes a great game, and makes it tedious and mind numbing. Its supposed to be a game, not a chore. Ive hit lvl 80, and now Im farming gold for my cultural armor set (which is way overpriced imo) and its killing my enjoyment of the game. It needs something engaging that isnt repetitive and mind numbing. Hence why I (and others) suggested the challenge being the quests/puzzles and not the farming. Theres already enough reasons to farm in this game, you shouldnt be forced to farm at endgame to get your legendaries. A quest chain would solve this while also adding some much desired endgame content. Think about it, you’ve just finished your story quest, you’ve got to 80, feeling like theres not much left to do but farm… But then… Oh wait! there is another awesome and engaging epic quest chain still to do!

ReverantSpark.7309:

(and others) suggested the challenge being the quests/puzzles and not the farming. Theres already enough reasons to farm in this game, you shouldnt be forced to farm at endgame to get your legendaries. A quest chain would solve this while also adding some much desired endgame content. Think about it, you’ve just finished your story quest, you’ve got to 80, feeling like theres not much left to do but farm… But then… Oh wait! there is another awesome and engaging epic quest chain still to do!

And what happens when the 6 month event chain ends and BAM! Everyone suddenly has a legendary and they arent special at all anymore. When you offer a legendary as endgame content, everyone will go for it and they will get it eventually. I oppose this happening and as such am quite fine with the grindy RNG concept we have now, which serves to keep the amount of them low because the less dedicated people wont bother.

Btw, this is coming from someone who doesnt have a legendary or a precursor.

Legendary is legendary because most people don’t have several hundred gold lying around or the dungeon tokens necessary.

If you want the extra fluff expect to put in the hours, making it so everyone has a legendary is pointless

Some of the legendaries are pretty badly designed though imo, lol @ pistol. Also engineers use their rifle as a blunderbuss and the legendary rifle looks like an AWP on crack.

Designing a legendary around warriors and screwing the other class that might want to use it is a little absurd, couldn’t you at least make it ambiguous?

The feeling of legendariness goes away when you realize that ammount of time and effort that you have to put into it is not the same for everyone.

Jrunyon.3012:

ReverantSpark.7309:

(and others) suggested the challenge being the quests/puzzles and not the farming. Theres already enough reasons to farm in this game, you shouldnt be forced to farm at endgame to get your legendaries. A quest chain would solve this while also adding some much desired endgame content. Think about it, you’ve just finished your story quest, you’ve got to 80, feeling like theres not much left to do but farm… But then… Oh wait! there is another awesome and engaging epic quest chain still to do!

And what happens when the 6 month event chain ends and BAM! Everyone suddenly has a legendary and they arent special at all anymore. When you offer a legendary as endgame content, everyone will go for it and they will get it eventually. I oppose this happening and as such am quite fine with the grindy RNG concept we have now, which serves to keep the amount of them low because the less dedicated people wont bother.

Btw, this is coming from someone who doesnt have a legendary or a precursor.

Aye, I can see your point there. Stops em being all that special cause they would be more common. I thought about it, and I think I have a solution… While Im not to big on the amount of farming you have to do… You could incorporate farming into the quest chain. That way it would at least break it up into bite size chunks instead of going “ok, go gather 1000’s of rare materials, enjoy the dull gameplay.” If it was done that way, you’d at least feel like your making some kind of progress if you get what I mean. Plus if they made it so you had gather smaller amounts of a bigger variety of mats, it would mean people are more spread out across the world, and it would make it less tedious. You’d at least often have a change of scenery. I think if it was done that way, it would improve the legendary weapon content.

As it stands now, if you have enough gold, you could effectively buy a legendary weapon in no time at all. But if there was a quest chain involved which only allowed you to do one quest a day… It would mean the people that have all that money (no doubt from buying gold illegally or through gems) wouldnt be able to buy all the mats and stuff and make it right there and then, it would make it a long process, which would reduce the amount of Legendaries being made, making them more rare, aswell as making it more interesting and fun for people who arent big on farming, due to breaking the farming up into stages.
You’ve got to remember though, the game isnt made just for hardcore players. While I do consider myself a hardcore gamer, I still think the means of obtaining a legendary weapon is bland and ridiculous. The only way Im gonna end up with one is if they either implement something to make the process more fun, or if I some day end up with enough gold to “buy” one. Which I dont see happening for a very long time lol. And like I say, the game isnt just for hardcore players, why should those players be denied such awesome weapons? Why should these weapons only be available to “leet” players who have the “Im gonna farm for days on end” mindset?

chronus.1326:

The feeling of legendariness goes away when you realize that ammount of time and effort that you have to put into it is not the same for everyone.

I agree, thats another reason why a quest chain would be a good idea. It would force people to go through the process of questing for em, instead of just going “Ive got more money than sense, so Ima cheat and buy gold and buy everything I need… boom! I has legendary!”

Essentialy, what needs to be done is… The level of difficulty to obtain a legendary needs to stay the same, but the process has to be more fun and interesting instead of being bland and chore like.

nofo.8469:

Legendary is legendary because most people don’t have several hundred gold lying around or the dungeon tokens necessary.

Seems kinda lame to make end-game content only for those who have the time. AreaNet strives to make this game for “everyone” so you don’t have some people with limitless time exceding others in terms of shine. Not everyone has several hundred gold but enough do where I’m seeing dozens of legendaries in LA already. ALREADY! Example shows that it isn’t that far out of reach for most. Perhaps to extend on making these Legendaries less common, make several new world events as a part of the quest lines that has a 2-3 day respawn and a low chance of dropping the item you need. Or make a specific action you must take during the world event such as throwing rocks that fall around at the Big boss in Metricia Province (Forget the name, its a giant flaming elemental) with a small chance of the item turning into a molten rock for the recipe. Or even a chance of the MegaLazer for Tequiti to break off a quest item that appears in the chest at the end. And ofcourse make these quest line items soulbound on aquire so none may trade them.

Runiir.6425:

Those wanting the requirement of maxing the appropriate weapon master skill are forgetting some huge problems with this.

Maxing shield is such an uphill battle that it requires purposefully wasting a skill to get killing blows. Yes, WASTING a skill. The guardian one is for aoe tag damage and for applying protection (best saved for when a mob is winding up an attack you cant avoid or don’t want to move from your spot) while the warrior skill is best used for interupting a skill rather than as a go to skill. Secondary skills for both cause no damage. Using the skills to kill something is a waste of a skill if it isn’t the last mob in a pack or a solo kill.

What about warrior’s that use warhorn? Hint: neither skill does damage, thus can’t get weaponmaster for the horn.

Weaponmaster stats are also shared across all characters further making this a BAD choice. Legendary weapons are designed to be character based (hence why map completion is required).

Ahhh, touche, my friend.

Then what about a Sigil of Potential? This would be Stage 1 (excuse the name)

Some legendary blacksmith (who spawns in a random place each day) can craft one of these for you. They require:

• Gift of Exploration
• Bloodstone Shard
• x amount of Obsidian Shards

When applied to any level 80 exotic, this will cause the weapon to gain XP in every fight. At the end of every level, the players must kill a certain boss / participate in a certain DE before they can gain any more XP. Weapon XP isn’t affected by XP boosters.

When the weapon has gained the equivalent of, say, 80 levels of XP, the blacksmith will send you a randomised list of materials he needs to create a Pre-Cursor out of a Potential weapon. This randomised list will contain:

• x amount of lodestones (how do they work?)
• x amount of random T6 fine crafting mat
• An item that is randomly spawned in the world (picture clue)
• An item that is randomly spawned in the world (lore test)
• 30 amount of item only available from Daily Achievements (would only appear once you have hit level 80).

Bring all these to him, and he’ll craft you a [Weapon i.e Greatsword] of Potential (i.e. the pre-cursor). Why not Dawn, Dusk ect? I’ll explain now.

Stage 2 – Preparing the Pre-Cursor

With the [Weapon Of Potential], the blacksmith will give you a long generic list of things you needs to do:

• All Dragons (item will be lootable from chest at L80)
• All Jumping Puzzles (item will be lootable from chest at L80)
• All Dungeons and Paths (item will be lootable from bosses at L80. Dungeon Gifts will also be needed)
• All Meta Events (item will be lootable from chest at L80)
• Participate in all Holiday Events

and a generic list of things he needs to craft:

• X amount of Orichalcum
• X amount of Ancient Wood
• X amount of Icy Runestones
• X amount of each lodestone
• X amount of Ectoplasms
• X amount of each T6 material
• X amount of Obsidian Shards
• X amount of Crystals from Miyani
• X amount of Soulbound Holiday Crafting Mats
• An Eldritch Scroll

Along with this, he’ll also give you randomised Daily Tasks (one specific event, one specific dungeon, one specific jumping puzzle and one specific dragon), in order for the pre-cursor to gain ‘experience’. Once you do these, talk to him and he’ll give you a Shard of Experience. You need X amounts of Shards as well.

Give all of this to him, and it’ll activate a quest to go ‘forge’ the weapon, where you have to protect the blacksmith, and slay a spawned Champion with the new weapon (maybe in Mount Maelstrom?). After this, you’ll have a [Weapon] of Legendary Potential.

Stage 3 – Making It Your Own

Remember where I said we wouldn’t have Dusk ect? This is why.

Making this part unique to the skin allows each weapon to have a number of skins without needing to create lots of additional content. This is also where a place in lore would help.

So, let’s take Twilight, for example.

Twilight was Grenth’s sword in the fight against Dwayna (possibly not true, but work with me here). So, in order to forge Twilight, we need to create a Gift of Darkness, and take it to the Temple of Grenth in Orr, where a spirit will spawn at a specific time during the night cycle for a certain amount of time. He’ll send you on daily tasks to retrieve ‘tributes’. When you’ve given enough tributes, then he’ll combine the Gift of Darkness with [Weapon] of Legendary Potential.

I agree with the OP. Obtaining a legendary should be a long quest, with challenges that require skill.

FFXI did this 10 YEARS AGO.

It’s unlikely that they’ll change the current legendaries, but here’s hoping for a quest line for new legendaries, or just unique looking exotics.

Personally I really want to see class-specific weapons and armor. I want my guardian to actually look like a guardian.

ReverantSpark.7309:

Ive been looking into making legendary weapons, and Im pretty dissapointed. All you have done is make it so we have to gather insane amounts of mats… Dont you think thats a pretty poor way of doing it? Its like you couldnt be bothered to think of a fun and interesting way of implementing it and just went “stuff it, just make it so people have to use stupid amounts of mats to get em.” thats not a legendary weapon, thats a pain in the butt weapon… The amount of farming/money it would take to gather all those mats is stupid.

There are far better ways of acquiring a legendary weapon that dont seem like a ridiculous farm/grind mission. The way it SHOULD have been implemented is like this…

Each weapon has an epic quest chain taking you all over tyria, a quest chain that can only be acquired when you hit lvl 80. You get messages throughout the game from your herald, (I think it was a herald) you should get a message from him when you hit 80 pointing you in the direction of NPC’s that start the quest chain for each respective weapon. For example…
“greetings, Im writing to inform you that there have been rumors circulating as to the whereabouts of the legendary weapons of tyria. [npc name] is said to have information on the whereabouts of such and such weapon, [npc name] has information on another weapon” and so on…

You could make it so the herald only points you in the direction of npcs that have info on the weapons usable by your class. Then during the quest chain for that specific weapon, you obtain parts of the weapon (artifacts) from each part of the quest as a reward or boss drop. Sort of like another story chain, but for endgame. Then once you have completed that quest chain, you have to use each part in the mystic forge along with a REASONABLE amount of mats to revive that pieces power. Then once you have empowered all of the pieces, you then combine those in the mystic forge to create a TRUE legendary weapon.

At the moment, legendary weapons are the “korean mmo” of weapons in guild wars… a huge grind/farm fest. As it stands, Im probably not gonna bother with them, cause to me it doesnt seem worth all the time and effort. But if it was incorporated into a quest chain… It would make the experience and road to acquiring your legendary weapons actually fun. I would happily play through a huge quest chain to get em, and Im sure that most if not everyone would prefer it that way too.

In place of a ridiculous number of expensive mats (I understand you made the numbers so high as to make them difficult to obtain) you could make it so the quest chains were long, challengeing, and pretty difficult.

A weapon isnt legendary imo cause of the umpteen amount of mats you have to gather, but because of how much of a challenge it is to obtain. And gathering/buying mats isnt a challenge. Thats only a challenge of how much mind numbing boring gameplay you can stand.

Legendaries are gold sinks and economy stabilizers.

Scootabuser.4915:

ReverantSpark.7309:

Legendaries are gold sinks and economy stabilizers.

I reckon there wouldnt be as many tier 6 mats for sale if people weren’t required to farm them for legendaries. For the most part, crafting is not very profitable so people wouldnt waste the effort to gather tier 6 mats as much if they were only for crafting garbage no one wants. A quest line could stray people away from feeding the tp with orichalucm ore, ancient wood logs, sea weed, etc stabilizing it.

I only realized recently that legendary weapons dont have better stats than exotic weapons. Ive learnt that the whole concept of legendary weapons is nothing more than a skin, which means as far as legendary weapons go… Im out lol. The ends dont justify the means imo. But if there was a quest chain tied into obtaining them, maybe enlightening non guild wars 1 players to the story and lore behind each weapon, then the means in itself would justify owning a legendary weapon. I would be very interested in obtaining one then. Otherwise, it just seems like a waste of time to me.
It seems like its just content made for hardcore guild wars 1 fans who know and love the lore, or for people who like the look of a legendary weapon and have the time to waste on getting one.

Either way, Im no longer interested in legendaries.

A post recently popped up on reddit asking whether legendaries have any lore behind them. Thought I’d just add that to the conversation here: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/134ha8/legendary_lore/

Also, add my name to the list of players who want to see more for the legendary items. Seriously, dandelions have more lore than most of the legendaries (“Pretty, but an invasive weed.”). Hopefully the upcoming legendary scavenger hunts fulfill the need for lore, similar to how the Mad Memories scavenger hunt delved into the back story of Mad King Thorn.