Guild Wars 2

Hey guys! I’m planning to dedicate 3k gold (Maybe more) into finding what the precursor rate for each weapon is. I know there’s already a similar research done with 3k forges, at a .79% chance, but this experiment is for my personal curiosity and community benefit. Since I’m doing everything in bulk, and planning to do at least 10k forges eventually, I haven’t been keeping track of number of forges between each precursor (And I got lazy in the beginning :P). When I release my data, it will only be raw data, but I may add graphs and such in the future. I’ll keep you guys updated with my progress! Look forward to it!
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UPDATES:

1/4/2014 – Reached 1k forges, 15 precursors so far, sitting at a 1.526 % of getting a precursor with all weapon types. Been REALLY lucky the past 3 days, but this is all going into more forges (:

1/5/2014 – Just noticed I’ve already went past 3.7k g! I’ve made quite a bit from lucky streaks, so I will go for 5k g now. The orders are kinda slow at the moment, because I’m running out of capital, some of the precursors still haven’t sold; I’m a business man first, gambler second

1/5/2014 – First Dusk!!! After 1.2k rare greatswords! Got so little money now, can’t even list it XD But this is great, more forges on the way!

1/6/2014 – Milestone! Spent 5k so far! Will now go for 10k

1/7/2014 – Since I’m going to take a break from GW2 since school has started, here is my data as of now. I will update more when I come back (won’t be for a while), but enjoy!

4/21/2014 – Back from my break, did a few more forges, got Tooth of Frostfang! Been getting weird glitches since the patch (4 lvl 80’s in, get a lvl 77 wtf haha)

4/24/2014 – Hit 1.5k forges! (Not including forges using rares) Will now begin the process of recording number of forges in between each successful precursor attempt!

5/2/2014 – 7k gold spent! Got my 20th precursor (leaf of Kudzu)! This broke a 2k gold cold streak… this is why you shouldn’t gamble haha.. I will update pictures every 4 precursors

5/2/2014 – Spreadsheet updated, it’s very messy, but I will fix it when I have time. The “Cost” function is a little off (it’s actually an underestimate) since prices have changed since 3 months ago, but I’m only researching the rates, it only serves as a pointer. Same goes for “Profits”.

5/6/2014 – Gonna be in China for a month and half for internship, so I can’t update the data since google docs is blocked in China. Also lagging out every 5 seconds on GW2 lol, might have to play the Chinese version XD

5/27/2014 – Really bored, now have A LOT of extra cash from investments, so I will be pouring all of it in exotics. Of course, google docs is still blocked, but I hope to get more pictures up once I get more precursors.

5/31/2014 – 4 more precursors yay

6/3/2014 – Another 4!
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ao6ESBhav0BqdExFeU5BaFFCRV9ka2d0azhDTHlLc2c&usp=sharing

Huh? 15 precursors after only 1k forges? I assume you are using exotics cause that is too high.

uhm, but 3k gold for 10k try..i think he uses rare or he would end up with way less forges

Easlay.3297:

uhm, but 3k gold for 10k try..i think he uses rare or he would end up with way less forges

He said he plans on doing 10k forges eventually, that means he didn’t do 10k forges.

well, but he said at same time he want to dedicate 3k gold..
for do 10k forges with exo, with 3k golds u do way way way less forge :P

Easlay.3297:

well, but he said at same time he want to dedicate 3k gold..
for do 10k forges with exo, with 3k golds u do way way way less forge :P

he will sell the pre cursors to eventually get to 10k forges

Yes I will be selling the precursors, luckily I’ve made about 3k profit (double my money) so far, but this will all be going into more forges.

I wish I had 3k gold to blow. Heck, I wish I even had 1k gold period.

Is this an exercise in how gullible people are? Essentially no data – and that little shred isn’t even self consistent. Highly improbable p-value. Shoddy method. I’ll bet on this being a wholly fabricated attention grab.

Yea I’m not too impressed as well.

Another guy, however, was serious about it, 10.000 gold in rare greatswords, with livestream, a detailed list of results and everything:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1tt1a9/stream_10000g_in_mystic_toilet_for_science/

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1u1a7k/data_10000g_rare_gs_results/

I’m not asking you guys to be impressed. Nor did I advertise my data to be the best. This is simply for my own enjoyment and other’s. If you don’t like it, move on. This is MY money that I’m spending, and I’m not even asking for donations. This is a free ride for YOU.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/crafting/I-ve-forged-23-Precursors-Here-is-my-data

This person did a lot of research, you should share your results with them so they can continue to update there stats/research.

so are you using all rares? some exotics? I’ve been using exotics only recently. blew through 1k gold to get a dusk, longer than normal cold streak but could be worse.

My advice is to craft rares to use for greatswords, since if you do all the calculations, you should save about 20% overall using rares

Started playing again, will update the doc soon

Agreed, you might save more using rares, but you have better chances (rolls) by using exo’s. I made myself 1000 rare staves at a cost of around 400g and got a total of 64 exotics in return. No precursors.

Two weeks later I was playing one night, about to shut off the game and head to bed, when I decided to buy 4 exotic staves to throw into the forge just on a whim. Bang — The Legend. Less than 12g invested in exotic staves for the top prize. I do wish I had a vid of the whole event.

hes bragging omfg -.- dont pay attention

Wow good job, interesting to see some actual numbers, probably won’t try any… Too poor :/

I’ve got many private messages about my data, thank you for your support! Some of the suggestions is that I record the number of forges in between each precourser, as a way to track hot streaks and cold streaks. I will start doing that now, I will update the spreadsheet when I get a few more precoursers, and I will try and make a website so it can have graphs and such etc. Stay tuned…

20th Precursor! Also went on a 2k gold cold streak… Will continue until I go broke lol

At this point you can probably answer a simple question:

Would you say, on average, that it is cheaper to buy the precursor you want from TP than to forge for it?

You cannot possibly rely on mystic forge. On average it is always better to farm that awful amount of gold …sadly admitted.

Mortifer.2946:

You cannot possibly rely on mystic forge. On average it is always better to farm that awful amount of gold …sadly admitted.

People who forged hundreds of precursors might disagree.

Those people are like unicorns…

Mortifer.2946:

Those people are like unicorns…

glittery with a vicious killing device surgically grafted onto their body?

Mortifer.2946:

Those people are like unicorns…

OP got 20 precursors with 7k gold. As soon as you stick out the RNG, you will see that forging precursors is quite lucrative.

Can I ask you OP. Can you give a breakdown of what you’re actually putting in the Forge? Is it all 80 rares, or some other combination?

Thanks.

I’m guessing with the rate he is reporting it’s all LVL 80 Exotics as Rares would be a much lower chance (I could be wrong in my guess here). I think a LOT of the issue of people convinced the MF is a waste of money for Precursors were using all Rares and don’t realize how much lower the chance is for them.

Brother Grimm.5176:

I’m guessing with the rate he is reporting it’s all LVL 80 Exotics as Rares would be a much lower chance (I could be wrong in my guess here). I think a LOT of the issue of people convinced the MF is a waste of money for Precursors were using all Rares and don’t realize how much lower the chance is for them.

There’s some data on the wiki for exotics, but not for rares. wiki says 0.79% for exotics. I have found some data on the web saying 1 in 700 for rares, so yeah, much lower, 0.14%.

That’s why I wanted to know from the OP. His 1/5 update did say “Moving on to Greatswords and Rare Greatswords now”

To the last poster, I stopped doing greatswords because the margins (4g per exotic, 50s for each rare crafted) were too low to be profitable.

To the poster who asked for the breakdown of my components, I’ll explain:

To have a chance at the precursor, you must put 4 exotic weapons (or rares), and their average level must equate to 75. Meaning if you add all the levels up, it should be 300. This means that any of the following combinations work: 3 level 80, one level 60… 4 level 75… 3 level 76 one level 72. I almost never use 4 level 80’s because it saves me an average of 1g per forge if I do 3 level 80’s and one level 60 instead (Level 60 exotics sell for 1g ea, while certain weapon type level 80’s go for 2g+.

As for the poster who commented that making precursors is very lucrative, it’s actually not. At my peak, I made 3.6k g, and in the next few weeks, on my longest cold streak, I went down to 1.6k. As you can see, cold streaks can cost you 2-3x the cost of actually buying a precursor. So unless you have a large amount of capital to begin with, if you try to make money of precursors you’.re going to have a bad time lol.

Honestly, if I invested all my money into speculation or flipping, I could have made ALOT more money during this time period compared to doing over 2k forges ( a lot of clicking and waiting on buy offers…) Pretty much that money is “stagnant” and is not making its full potential. On the other hand, if I were to be constantly flipping with that money, I could have made much more money than the mystic forge. So bottom note, it COULD be profitable to mystic forge precursors, but to be able to do so efficiently, you need to have a LOAD of money, and if you had a LOAD of money in the first place, you could have put that to better use rather than gamble it :P

Thanks for the detailed info. And you meant 4 level 75, not 4 level 70.

Thanks lol, fixed

Tom Gore.4035:

Would you say, on average, that it is cheaper to buy the precursor you want from TP than to forge for it?

On average it is cheaper to forge a high demand precursor (using rares) than to buy it – greatsword margins have been kind of blah for a while, but staves and swords poke above 30% on a good day, and daggers are particularly hot at the moment. However, it can take a very, very long time for ‘on average’ to even out. Streaks of 7000 rares without seeing a precursor are not at all uncommon, and unless you have a couple thousand gold as a bankroll forging precursors is more gambling than a reasonable plan to make money.

Lankybrit.4598:

There’s some data on the wiki for exotics, but not for rares. wiki says 0.79% for exotics.

The wiki’s number is high. It’s realistically somewhere in the 1:140 to 1:170 range. If you’re betting on 1:100 or 1:120 you’re likely to be disappointed.

Rare odds are simply 5x that, so somewhere in the 1:700 to 1:850 range. There’s plenty of evidence supporting the link between the two – 20% chance to get exotics from rares, and the exotic roll using the same table regardless of whether you threw rares or exotics into the forge.

100 forges away from 2k forges! Running low on cash now, so I will begin experimenting with rares (swords, daggers, staff, greatswords), I put aside 400 gold for flipping, and by doing that I can self sustain forges for my rares each day! I’ll update the spreadsheet once I have about 1k forges with each type

Wanze.8410:

Mortifer.2946:

Those people are like unicorns…

OP got 20 precursors with 7k gold. As soon as you stick out the RNG, you will see that forging precursors is quite lucrative.

If you can make investment of 3000g and have luck at the beginning to increase your funds and continue with forging, then yes. However, it is still only about luck… no “business science” involved in this BS.

Agreed, it’s hard to make money off crafting precursors. As for business science, if we assume the precursor market follows basic supply and demand, the prices for precursors right now should actually be HIGHER because of the extra supply from random precursor drops. Normally, the price of the precursor and the amount of forges it takes to get one should average out to be nearly the same, because people will tend to craft the precursors that are most cost efficient. But since there’s more supply from random drops, it actually makes crafting precursors worth less, therefore making it less efficient.

Esoteric.4395:

Agreed, it’s hard to make money off crafting precursors. As for business science, if we assume the precursor market follows basic supply and demand, the prices for precursors right now should actually be HIGHER because of the extra supply from random precursor drops. Normally, the price of the precursor and the amount of forges it takes to get one should average out to be nearly the same, because people will tend to craft the precursors that are most cost efficient. But since there’s more supply from random drops, it actually makes crafting precursors worth less, therefore making it less efficient.

How do you know that there is extra supply from random loot drops?

I agree though that the average price of forging a pre is probably very close to the highest buy offer.
I think its also clear that the recent price spike was due to the added funtionality of legendaries, which drove demand up. The easiest way to increase supply is to attempt to forge more pres because its hard to attempt to increase your chance for a random loot drop. And i am pretty sure that way more pres have been forged after the price spike than before but unfortunately it wasnt enough to meet demand.
Along with more forge attempts, the supply of t5 fine mats (to craft rare inscriptions) is slowly dwindling, their price rose a good 100% within the last 6 weeks and so did many exotic weapons.
Forging precursors has become alot more expensive recently.

Well the problem is, we don’t know how many are actually dropped on a daily basis, since a precursor can be dropped from random mobs, boss chests, JP chests, etc. But it can be concluded that there exists precursors that are part of the supply that weren’t forged. But those chances are REALLY slim, so my guess is that the majority of precursors on the market since the beginning of the game was in fact from the mystic forge. In this case, the crafters/forgers are actually the price setters for precursor prices, and if experienced enough, they are the ones that possess the most information (when to sell, market trends etc.). On the other hand, people who get one as a drop mostly likely would sell at the current market price, since they know less about the market. This is why I think the prices of precursor and prices of average amount of exotics to forge a precursor is relatively the same, BUT because of external factors like supply from people with lucky drops, the price of precursors is slightly lower than what it should be, so at the end of the day, you are better off just buying the precursor with cash.

Wait a sec, not everyone who forges a precursor goes and sells it on the TP. A lot of them are actually invested straight into the crafting of their account-bound legendary.

Yea that is true, but there are also people who dump 5k gold worth of rare greatswords into the forge, and get 4-5 precursors at once, which is usually 50%-25% of the current listed market

Here is my research. Put more then 1500 rares sinds release in it > nothing.
700+ exo’s sinds release > nothing.
Today 470g of exo’s > nothing.

Realy the RNG is one big flaw in this game. Is my account hoaxed?

Yes could buy a Precurssor if it wasn’t that the prices went up by 400g again in 2 days.
So Anet see the flaw of your design.

ps. OP if you get a Dawn you know where to send it ^^

Bad news… Google docs is blocked in China haha XD

Been experimenting with rares now since price of exotics have been quite expensive recently. Doing most of my forges on my second account now so I can enjoy the luxury of not having to worry about inventory space. Anyways, about 200 forges in, got Spark. Updated pictures

Wanze.8410:

Mortifer.2946:

Those people are like unicorns…

OP got 20 precursors with 7k gold. As soon as you stick out the RNG, you will see that forging precursors is quite lucrative.

Or you can be like me and put over 3k gold in and get zero return out.

Essence Snow.3194:

Or you can be like me and put over 3k gold in and get zero return out.

Karma seems to work fine, then.

Do you have a problem?

Nope, not with Karma.

Good. It should be coming to bite you in the kitten any day now.

I have no kitten.