Guild Wars 2

What did I do wrong?

I crafted an exotic sword/dagger combo for a friend. I made 1 each berserker set and marauder set. (Total 4 items). I can mail the berserker set to him, but not the marauder set. They somehow came out account bound, even though they are both still unequipped (i.e. soulbound on use).

I’m sure I made them the same way, and they all appeared in my crafter’s bag, so why did Marauder come out account bound?

all HoT stat sets are account bound, which is why you can’t buy them on the trading post.

You did nothing wrong. Some stats are account bound upon creation, such as Marauder or Nomad (e.g. Marauder Pearl Conch )

How, exactly, does one find that out, short of making the mistake I did?

Upon reading more, I find a post that says Celestial stats are account bound. I’m surely not going to craft a set to determine if the post is true, but celestial came out eons before HoT.

Is there some place to find out what actually will transfer? The wiki pages on stats go into great depth about what each stat type does, but nowhere warns that you can’t get buy them (and being a max crafter in all crafting, doesn’t warn me I can’t make them for someone else).

You can hover over items before you craft them in the crafting panel, which will tell you if it’s account bound or not.

On the wiki there’s also a handy little window (top right) or column in the table, which will either tell you the Trading Post prices, or it will say Account Bound.

Haleydawn.3764:

You can hover over items before you craft them in the crafting panel, which will tell you if it’s account bound or not.

Thanks for the tip. I’m unsure how to use it, however.

Since I had to discover both the marauder recipes, how was I supposed to hover it?

Now that I have the recipe, when I hover over it, it does say account bound.

So I’m back to the question of how I learn it’s going to be account bound before I make one?

Michael.9403:

Haleydawn.3764:

You can hover over items before you craft them in the crafting panel, which will tell you if it’s account bound or not.

Thanks for the tip. I’m unsure how to use it, however.

Since I had to discover both the marauder recipes, how was I supposed to hover it?

Now that I have the recipe, when I hover over it, it does say account bound.

So I’m back to the question of how I learn it’s going to be account bound before I make one?

When you learned the inscription recipe, you click that in your crafting list to show you your components in the main window, above that you have your inscription icon and it’s name next to it, you hover over that icon and it says ‘Account Bound’.

Haleydawn.3764:

When you learned the inscription recipe, you click that in your crafting list to show you your components in the main window, above that you have your inscription icon and it’s name next to it, you hover over that icon and it says ‘Account Bound’.

I see. Had I even a clue that exotics could not be transferred, I might have done that. I’ve crafted since the beginning, and ran up to 500 when ascended came out. Everything exotic could be transferred, and I made stuff for friends a lot. Never hit the issue.

This is probably the first time in years I’ve crafted exotics other than for myself, and I didn’t know. Now that I do know, I can’t fit any game theory to why some exotics can be transferred and some cannot. It’s like some mid level dev at ANET went off on a tangent about the time they started introducing new combos, and nobody was/is in charge of the overall game consistency.

Is there some good gaming rationale for some exotics being account bound and some not that I’m missing?

Michael.9403:

Is there some good gaming rationale for some exotics being account bound and some not that I’m missing?

HoT stats are part of the “HoT package”, that’s why they’re not tradeable. If somebody wants these stat combinations, they have to buy the expansion.

I did not studied the recipes in depth, but for example Celestial is Account bound because you need to have some account bound materials (Charged Crystals) to make insignia for this armor.
Simply, there are some armors in the game, where if you want them, you must put some effort to get them, besides your credit card (to buy gems and change them to gold).

Sound OK for me.

If the insignia or inscription is account bound then the resulting weapon or armor is also account bound.

Michael.9403:

Haleydawn.3764:

When you learned the inscription recipe, you click that in your crafting list to show you your components in the main window, above that you have your inscription icon and it’s name next to it, you hover over that icon and it says ‘Account Bound’.

I see. Had I even a clue that exotics could not be transferred, I might have done that. I’ve crafted since the beginning, and ran up to 500 when ascended came out. Everything exotic could be transferred, and I made stuff for friends a lot. Never hit the issue.

This is probably the first time in years I’ve crafted exotics other than for myself, and I didn’t know. Now that I do know, I can’t fit any game theory to why some exotics can be transferred and some cannot. It’s like some mid level dev at ANET went off on a tangent about the time they started introducing new combos, and nobody was/is in charge of the overall game consistency.

Is there some good gaming rationale for some exotics being account bound and some not that I’m missing?

It’s to either; encourage people to gather the mats themselves (Celestial) and/or encourage people to buy the expansion (HoT quad-stat items.)

Now, your first mistake was assuming all crafting followed the core games stats of crafting. Your second was not researching new stat sets.
I don’t see account binding certain things as a problem, because it adds value to it outside of the TP.

Unless your friend buys HoT to Craft these stats himself, he could mix match some Beserkers and Valkyries to get similar stat values.