Guild Wars 2

I’ve just decided to start crafting the legendary axe, Frostfang and at first, it seemed obvious that it would be cheaper to obtain the precursor, Tooth of Frostfang by completing the collection as oppose to buying it off the TP. After some research however, I am under the impression that for this precursor at least, it is much cheaper just to buy it off the TP. According to GW2Efficiency, crafting Tooth of Frostfang costs over 200 gold more than buying it off the TP, or 150 gold more even when buying from sell orders. Furthermore, not only does crafting a precursor cost a lot more, it also takes hours of grinding. So my question is……… WTF???

I thought the whole point of Legendary Collections was for there to be a cheaper and alternative way to obtain a precursor weapon than buying it off the TP.

Hopefully someone can shed some light on my situation for me.

Yea they completely dropped the ball on these. The collections would be great if they didn’t attach all the gold and material costs to them making them pointless.

Yea they never said it would be a cheaper way to obtain a precursor, just a sure fire way to get the specific one you want.

Cernini.2369:

I think the main point was to make it less random. Before HoT precursors were just extremely low chance drops and now you can get them reliably.

Getting them off TP was always reliable, and is not only faster, but also cheaper for many precursors.

Always check TP prices before you start crafting.

Linken.6345:

Yea they never said it would be a cheaper way to obtain a precursor, just a sure fire way to get the specific one you want.

And buying the precursor you wanted off the TP isn’t a sure fire way to get it?

DirtDowney.5187:

Linken.6345:

Yea they never said it would be a cheaper way to obtain a precursor, just a sure fire way to get the specific one you want.

And buying the precursor you wanted off the TP isn’t a sure fire way to get it?

True but to some players farming gold to buy something off the TP is soooo boring

flog.3485:

DirtDowney.5187:

Linken.6345:

Yea they never said it would be a cheaper way to obtain a precursor, just a sure fire way to get the specific one you want.

And buying the precursor you wanted off the TP isn’t a sure fire way to get it?

True but to some players farming gold to buy something off the TP is soooo boring

As above poster said, I as of this posting only got two percursors so far axe and horn.
Wont buy any of them from the tp will craft/find myself thats how I roll.

People cried about the grind and now people cry because any casual can get the complete set of legendaries. It’s sad to see what happened to this aspect of the game

Anet have admitted they’re aware that crafting a pre doing collections will currently cost you more than simply buying the pre off the TP. That is of course non-hot pre’s since the others cant be sold/brought. Its basically for people that find it hard to save gold and like to do it bit by bit or people who enjoy waiting for bugged events..

Personally I will never do collections unless I want to get a new H.O.T legendary (because i couldnt get them anywhere else). I was going to buy dusk from TP but instead decided to take my chances with level 80 gs in forge instead. Lucky for me 500g worth of rares = 1x dusk, 1x dawn.

Since then I’ve gotten dusk again from forge for 300g worth of rares. SO 800g and 3 pre’s vs 1100g for one dusk on tp. So i’d say if you can save about 500g go the forge way and get one from there (if lucky). Until collections are fixed and prices reduced for those mats then that is not the way to go for tyria pre’s at least not if you care to save your gold.

Anet probably made the mistake that they took the material / ascended crafing material prices before the introduction of the legendary collections to calculate the price for the precursor craft. They may have calculatd the prices to go up, but they probably werent prepared for the prices to go up so far that it becomes cheaper to get the precursor off the tp in 90% of the cases. Now they are likely waiting for material prices to settle down. Silk (although not needed for precursors if i’m not mistaken) has already taken a dive from its previous heights.

I recently finished crafting the precursor for Juggernaut, and I’m pretty sure it cost me more to craft it than it would have to buy it off the TP. I did this willingly since I wanted to go through the precursor crafting process at least once to experience it. Now that I have, I’ll have to admit it was disappointing that so much of it was just a material sink. The pieces of the journey that required doing a certain event or activity were fun (or at least an acceptable part of the journey) but the material sink pieces didn’t feel legendary at all.

My advice to anyone considering crafting a generation 1 precursor is to research the materials and costs required and compare that to the cost of buying the precursor from the TP. If the TP is cheaper, then ask yourself if the experience of the crafting journey is important to you enough to warrant the difference in price. If it is worth it, enjoy the journey! If it is not worth it, buy it from the TP.

The Juggernaut pre at the moment is cheaper to buy from the TP, but this is only because of the mats needed to craft the pre, ( IE, Wood nodes ) with wood being tied to the legendary back piece it makes any Pre that needs it cost more,

There are however some pre’s that are cheaper to craft than to buy, it really comes down to mats needed and what they are currently needed for elsewhere in the game, it all balances out in the long term.

Examples from today

Bolt, Craft 630G Buy 876G
Spark, Craft 609G Buy 870G
Colossus, Craft 800G Buy 641G

If you want to craft a certain pre, like it was stated above, research what it needs, the prices for wood logs etc are on the down atm, making it cheaper to craft some pre’s that require them.

I think the crappiest part in the whole Legendary system is the fact that there was zero willingness to compromise in regards to releasing new legendaries. If the quest for them is too much for the studio to handle at least release the skins. Instead we get a whole boat load of nothing, but I digress.

I have always purchased the legendaries because I wasn’t sold on HoT and never bought it. There just wasn’t enough there and I felt like a lot of it was empty promises.

I think people forgot that prices of mat jump all over the place. Some precursors are cheaper to craft still, asking for a perfect system. At the moment, from the prices I’d say they did a good job. Crafting the precursors have some added benefits of extra items (see Colossus) which is why they are higher.

Crafting a precursor was never supposed to be cheaper. (That would never work because prices would adjust to match, exactly as they have done.)

It was just an alternative for people kittenented relying on RNG or paying gold to someone who got a lucky drop.

It also helps with people who find it hard to save up, because you can see yourself making progress bit by bit, instead of just seeing gold piling up which could be used for all kinds of other things.

I do understand that it was never meant to be cheaper and I accept that. I do wish that our time for the grind was given some value, however. Right now it seems to be valued not at all.

If your goal is to obtain the precursor as easily and cheaply as possible, check the various websites for the comparison and only do the collection if it’s 20% or more cheaper (not worth the extra time/effort otherwise).

If your goal is to take your time, gradually building up to the legendary, and enjoying your role in making it happen, then don’t worry about the cost — it will just make the process less enjoyable to know just how expensive it is (sometimes even if it’s cheaper than the TP).

To put most simply: the collections aren’t designed for those worry about time & effort (including costs); they are designed as a fun thing to do, with comparable costs.

flog.3485:

True but to some players farming gold to buy something off the TP is soooo boring

Now you can farm to buy the required mats instead.

Seiroxena.6350:

People cried about the grind and now people cry because any casual can get the complete set of legendaries. It’s sad to see what happened to this aspect of the game

Personally I would be happy if any casual could get a legendary but nothing about this changed, this wasn’t made any easier or cheaper.

Shinzan.2908:

flog.3485:

True but to some players farming gold to buy something off the TP is soooo boring

Now you can farm to buy the required mats instead.

Seiroxena.6350:

People cried about the grind and now people cry because any casual can get the complete set of legendaries. It’s sad to see what happened to this aspect of the game

Personally I would be happy if any casual could get a legendary but nothing about this changed, this wasn’t made any easier or cheaper.

I am a casual player, i crafted sunrise 2years ago and twilight just last week. I found crafting the legendary without going through the precursor crafing is so much more casual.

I never grind gold, only doing necessary dungeon run for the gift, and playing normally for dailies and until one day i found i am affortable to pull dusk from TP, all shard are from karma, most tier6 mat from laruels. This is the greatness of the gen1 legendary, i dont need to play raid nor dungeon grind, all comes together when the time is right.

Legendary is a long term goal, it is not grind only players who want it NOW made it grind. The collection is a way to help player get precursor as a long term goal, getting there slowly, it will be costy when the NOW is in mind.

flog.3485:

DirtDowney.5187:

Linken.6345:

Yea they never said it would be a cheaper way to obtain a precursor, just a sure fire way to get the specific one you want.

And buying the precursor you wanted off the TP isn’t a sure fire way to get it?

True but to some players farming gold to buy something off the TP is soooo boring

Farming stacks and stacks of mats is actually worse. And that’s without the inexplicable and wild disparity where some precursors require an order of magnitude more mats than others for… reasons.

It’s a real shame, too, the actual playing the game parts of the collections are pretty good, but the “go farm mats, kitten you” parts are miserable. It’s blatantly obvious that Anet was more concerned about the sanctity of their precious fake economy than player enjoyment (as usual).

Hyper Cutter.9376:

It’s a real shame, too, the actual playing the game parts of the collections are pretty good, but the “go farm mats, kitten you” parts are miserable. It’s blatantly obvious that Anet was more concerned about the sanctity of their precious fake economy than player enjoyment (as usual).

This pretty much. The legendary itself already costs a ton of gold so the precursor colletions shouldn’t, just remove all those gold/material costs and make the precursor accountbound so you can’t sell it.

The quest parts precursor crafting are fun (when they work but that’s another topic).

Hyper Cutter.9376:

flog.3485:

DirtDowney.5187:

Linken.6345:

Yea they never said it would be a cheaper way to obtain a precursor, just a sure fire way to get the specific one you want.

And buying the precursor you wanted off the TP isn’t a sure fire way to get it?

True but to some players farming gold to buy something off the TP is soooo boring

Farming stacks and stacks of mats is actually worse. And that’s without the inexplicable and wild disparity where some precursors require an order of magnitude more mats than others for… reasons.

It’s a real shame, too, the actual playing the game parts of the collections are pretty good, but the “go farm mats, kitten you” parts are miserable. It’s blatantly obvious that Anet was more concerned about the sanctity of their precious fake economy than player enjoyment (as usual).

Well that is only your perception. Of course if you only want to get your legendary as quickly as possible, sure buy the precursor off the TP but personally, like Illconceived has said before in this thread I just like to see my progress being taken into account with collection whereas before it was just like “omg how much dungeon, WB and world events do I need to farm until I get enough gold to buy the precursor off the TP or buy enough rares to try my luck with the mystic forge” : the first looks to much like irl and the second, well, I never got lucky in three years. I think we just need to agree to disagree I guess

Forestgreen.7981:

I think people forgot that prices of mat jump all over the place. Some precursors are cheaper to craft still, asking for a perfect system. At the moment, from the prices I’d say they did a good job. Crafting the precursors have some added benefits of extra items (see Colossus) which is why they are higher.

That’s only for a few of the precursors. Most don’t have those added bonuses – it’s just a mats sink.

flog.3485:

Hyper Cutter.9376:

flog.3485:

DirtDowney.5187:

Linken.6345:

Yea they never said it would be a cheaper way to obtain a precursor, just a sure fire way to get the specific one you want.

And buying the precursor you wanted off the TP isn’t a sure fire way to get it?

True but to some players farming gold to buy something off the TP is soooo boring

Farming stacks and stacks of mats is actually worse. And that’s without the inexplicable and wild disparity where some precursors require an order of magnitude more mats than others for… reasons.

It’s a real shame, too, the actual playing the game parts of the collections are pretty good, but the “go farm mats, kitten you” parts are miserable. It’s blatantly obvious that Anet was more concerned about the sanctity of their precious fake economy than player enjoyment (as usual).

Well that is only your perception. Of course if you only want to get your legendary as quickly as possible, sure buy the precursor off the TP but personally, like Illconceived has said before in this thread I just like to see my progress being taken into account with collection whereas before it was just like “omg how much dungeon, WB and world events do I need to farm until I get enough gold to buy the precursor off the TP or buy enough rares to try my luck with the mystic forge” : the first looks to much like irl and the second, well, I never got lucky in three years. I think we just need to agree to disagree I guess

And how is the second tier of the precursor collection any different?

Craft the account bound HoT legendary precursors.

Buy the core precursors off the TP.

I wish that Anet had not wasted the dev time with the collection quests for original precursors – the extra dev time could have been used to finish off a full new set of legendaries instead of having to axe them as they did recently.

Instead we have superfluous/unnecessary collections for old precursors and only 4 new legendaries…

Buying one off the trading post: Fast and instant gratification.
Crafting one through collections: Slow guaranteed way to get the one you wanted.
Drop table: Roughly free but long RNG way to get one.

It was never said, crafting would be cheaper, faster, or better. Nothing beats buying something off the trading post. But for those who don’t have 1200* gold to buy Dusk or something similar, right off the bat. Crafting seems more possible as its 1100-1400* gold in a sustained amount.

• prices don’t reflect actual price, just simply numbers for example sake.

Riku.4821:

Buying one off the trading post: Fast and instant gratification.
Crafting one through collections: Slow guaranteed way to get the one you wanted.
Drop table: Roughly free but long RNG way to get one.

It was never said, crafting would be cheaper, faster, or better. Nothing beats buying something off the trading post. But for those who don’t have 1200* gold to buy Dusk or something similar, right off the bat. Crafting seems more possible as its 1100-1400* gold in a sustained amount.

• prices don’t reflect actual price, just simply numbers for example sake.

The only valid reasons I can think of for players not to buy straight from the TP are:
- not enough self restraint to save gold
- enjoying the precursor quests

Fair enough if a player enjoys the quests involved in crafting the precursor.

But earning gold is sustained. If a player can’t handle seeing gold numbers in their wallet of 3 figures or more then they can even invest that gold into mats or something.

Saving gold is slow and guaranteed, and a lot easier than going through a checklist of tasks to do and things to craft.

Astralporing.1957:

Forestgreen.7981:

I think people forgot that prices of mat jump all over the place. Some precursors are cheaper to craft still, asking for a perfect system. At the moment, from the prices I’d say they did a good job. Crafting the precursors have some added benefits of extra items (see Colossus) which is why they are higher.

That’s only for a few of the precursors. Most don’t have those added bonuses – it’s just a mats sink.

flog.3485:

Hyper Cutter.9376:

flog.3485:

DirtDowney.5187:

Linken.6345:

Yea they never said it would be a cheaper way to obtain a precursor, just a sure fire way to get the specific one you want.

And buying the precursor you wanted off the TP isn’t a sure fire way to get it?

True but to some players farming gold to buy something off the TP is soooo boring

Farming stacks and stacks of mats is actually worse. And that’s without the inexplicable and wild disparity where some precursors require an order of magnitude more mats than others for… reasons.

It’s a real shame, too, the actual playing the game parts of the collections are pretty good, but the “go farm mats, kitten you” parts are miserable. It’s blatantly obvious that Anet was more concerned about the sanctity of their precious fake economy than player enjoyment (as usual).

Well that is only your perception. Of course if you only want to get your legendary as quickly as possible, sure buy the precursor off the TP but personally, like Illconceived has said before in this thread I just like to see my progress being taken into account with collection whereas before it was just like “omg how much dungeon, WB and world events do I need to farm until I get enough gold to buy the precursor off the TP or buy enough rares to try my luck with the mystic forge” : the first looks to much like irl and the second, well, I never got lucky in three years. I think we just need to agree to disagree I guess

And how is the second tier of the precursor collection any different?

Where did I state it was any different ? Like I said, it is only a matter of preference. And I prefer this model because it gives a choice, whereas before……You could not obtain a precursor like you could farm mats and then use the mystic forge to create the other components that are parts of crafting a legendary weapon.

I really liked the scavenger hunt part of the precursor crafting as it gave it a sense of story and weight, and hell I really would enjoy chattering the mats to craft it….only I’m not gonna wait 3 months to get the kitten thing. That’s just ridiculous. I could get the gold I’d need in half the time just by playing casually and selling all the rares and exos. Screw Timegates.

DirtDowney.5187:

I’ve just decided to start crafting the legendary axe, Frostfang and at first, it seemed obvious that it would be cheaper to obtain the precursor, Tooth of Frostfang by completing the collection as oppose to buying it off the TP. After some research however, I am under the impression that for this precursor at least, it is much cheaper just to buy it off the TP. According to GW2Efficiency, crafting Tooth of Frostfang costs over 200 gold more than buying it off the TP, or 150 gold more even when buying from sell orders. Furthermore, not only does crafting a precursor cost a lot more, it also takes hours of grinding. So my question is……… WTF???

I thought the whole point of Legendary Collections was for there to be a cheaper and alternative way to obtain a precursor weapon than buying it off the TP.

Hopefully someone can shed some light on my situation for me.

It was NEVER about having a guaranteed cheaper alternative. It was for an alternative to outright BUYING the precursor. Only a fool would expect collections to be fast. The collections are meant to be a time-intensive alternative.

flog.3485:

DirtDowney.5187:

Linken.6345:

Yea they never said it would be a cheaper way to obtain a precursor, just a sure fire way to get the specific one you want.

And buying the precursor you wanted off the TP isn’t a sure fire way to get it?

True but to some players farming gold to buy something off the TP is soooo boring

I guess chopping elder wood in malchor leap is very exciting for some people …

I’ve personally bought the ones I’ve had or got them as drops or luck from mystic forge. The “crafting” precursor thing is just too much PvE for me.

If you want to craft it nao then you have to look at buy it nao and make a decision.
If you play at weekends and probably don’t even do anything big during that time, the ability to craft a precursor is priceless.
It’s a real shame people get hung up on the costs involved. Gathering mats is free and allows a huge part of the population to progress something they wouldn’t otherwise as they don’t MF hundreds or thousands of gold or farm/do the things that are most likely to drop a precursor.

Khisanth.2948:

flog.3485:

DirtDowney.5187:

Linken.6345:

Yea they never said it would be a cheaper way to obtain a precursor, just a sure fire way to get the specific one you want.

And buying the precursor you wanted off the TP isn’t a sure fire way to get it?

True but to some players farming gold to buy something off the TP is soooo boring

I guess chopping elder wood in malchor leap is very exciting for some people …

That would be true if the only way to get some wood was by chopping it. I don’t know about you but personally I don’t login just to chop wood and do some mining for whatever collection it is required….I also play the game and do the events. Whether it takes 9 months or less or more to acquire my precursor by chopping, mining and playing the game with my casual playtime is irrelevant. In the end I know I will get it whereas before it was only based on how much gold a player will be able to gain and we all know gold is not only used for legendary weapons to acquire

flog.3485:

Khisanth.2948:

flog.3485:

DirtDowney.5187:

Linken.6345:

Yea they never said it would be a cheaper way to obtain a precursor, just a sure fire way to get the specific one you want.

And buying the precursor you wanted off the TP isn’t a sure fire way to get it?

True but to some players farming gold to buy something off the TP is soooo boring

I guess chopping elder wood in malchor leap is very exciting for some people …

That would be true if the only way to get some wood was by chopping it. I don’t know about you but personally I don’t login just to chop wood and do some mining for whatever collection it is required….I also play the game and do the events. Whether it takes 9 months or less or more to acquire my precursor by chopping, mining and playing the game with my casual playtime is irrelevant. In the end I know I will get it whereas before it was only based on how much gold a player will be able to gain and we all know gold is not only used for legendary weapons to acquire

It is all equivalent to the gold anyway. Refusing to sell the materials to convert them into gold doesn’t really change that.

Khisanth.2948:

flog.3485:

Khisanth.2948:

flog.3485:

DirtDowney.5187:

Linken.6345:

Yea they never said it would be a cheaper way to obtain a precursor, just a sure fire way to get the specific one you want.

And buying the precursor you wanted off the TP isn’t a sure fire way to get it?

True but to some players farming gold to buy something off the TP is soooo boring

I guess chopping elder wood in malchor leap is very exciting for some people …

That would be true if the only way to get some wood was by chopping it. I don’t know about you but personally I don’t login just to chop wood and do some mining for whatever collection it is required….I also play the game and do the events. Whether it takes 9 months or less or more to acquire my precursor by chopping, mining and playing the game with my casual playtime is irrelevant. In the end I know I will get it whereas before it was only based on how much gold a player will be able to gain and we all know gold is not only used for legendary weapons to acquire

It is all equivalent to the gold anyway. Refusing to sell the materials to convert them into gold doesn’t really change that.

Sure but now, I will no be forced to only rely on gold value because hoarding gold just like you would hoard money in a separate account irl to buy yourself something nice or to please someone or offer yourself some expensive vacation because you would not be able to afford it in normal time, is definitely something I do not want to duplicate in game. But hey that is just me

General Health.9678:

Gathering mats is free and allows a huge part of the population to progress something they wouldn’t otherwise as they don’t MF hundreds or thousands of gold or farm/do the things that are most likely to drop a precursor.

…you are aware that in most cases selling those mats would give you more than enough gold to buy that precursor and still have extra?

Also, how do you think people farm gold? Hint: it’s not by farming gold directly, but usually by gathering mats from nodes/drops and selling those. So, when doing collections, you’re doing exactly the same thing you’d do when farming to buy it off tp, but you need to farm more, and do other things on top of it.

It’s not an absolute truth that buying off TP is cheaper. I did the 2 greatswords and I did save at least 300 gold by crafting it myself. It just took several months cause I crafted every day a T7 ingot and wasn’t in a hurry to craft it.
Majority of precursors are more expensive to craft though. Check your weapon.