Guild Wars 2

What do you think? And if you own or used to own a precursor, did you buy it from the TP?

I was surprised that Wooden Potatoes bought all his precursors. Is that the most common way of acquiring them?

i bought all my precursors, but it was back when Zap was 450g, Leaf of Kudzu was 500g, and Dusk was 700g…

I guess that must have cost a lot of gems.

well id say it must be a close split between people getting them from the mystic forge and people buying them from the tp because obviously the ones from the tp gotta come from somewhere. then there would be a smaller percentage who lucked into getting one somewhere else

edit
@darkspirit gold is actually quite easy to come by in game, especially if you play a lot. daily achievements could net you a gold
a single dungeon path per day would guarantee a gold + tokens which can be turned into gold and a chance at decent loot that could also be turned into gold
flipping things on the tp is not a hard thing to figure out if you put in the time that will also make you heaps.

dont be so cynical just because your efforts have presumably come up short

I saved up for both of my precursors, The Legend and The Energizer. I threw so many staves into the mystic forge with no result that it’s just the only reliable way.

And at Goat- not everybody wants to spend their time in game manipulating the trading post.
After two years of playing I’ve found the last month or two to be the worst for me in terms of earning gold just by playing. In part because I’ve gotten burned out on grinding dungeons, but also because the living story events have been very difficult to profit from. The rewards are all toward account bound skins (which cost more to make than you can possibly get out of them), unlike previous events like the boss blitz where real profit could be made for time investment.

i was lucky enough to get 2 Storms from the toilet, swapped those for a Spark

eyestrain.3056:

…
And at Goat- not everybody wants to spend their time in game manipulating the trading post.
…

You could say, it gives you an eye strain.

(Had to do it.)

I have no desire for legendary they’ve not made anything that really appeals to me to be honest, but if I ever was going to get one I would use TP not the mystic toilet because I prefer X = Y and not X ~maybe~ Y.

The method so far as worked quite well salvage -everything- unless its useful, after 5 character reaching 80 in 68 days, I’ve got a lot of materials.

I bought mine when Leaf of Kudzu was 500 gold and Energizer was 300 gold.

I bought Tooth of Frostfang in January of this year. Gave up on waiting for a precursor drop

On a side note: At the time I had 5k+ hours of game play and 0 precursors when crafted Frostfang and yet still am counting, now is 6k+ hours with 0 precursors on record.

I bought one for 700g and made my legendary. I don’t gamble so wasting my gold in mystic toilet did not even cross my mind. Buying is the only reliable way to get the one you want.

Edit:

Oh and I never would turn gems into gold. I do only the opposite, turning gold into gems.

DarkSpirit.7046:

I guess that must have cost a lot of gems.

nope…. most of my gold were mostly from mining, back before the implementation of megaservers….. and i didn’t buy any gems ever with real money….

Only precursor I ever had came from the TP. Rodgort’s Flame only cost about 60G.

Goatjugsoup.8637:

edit
@darkspirit gold is actually quite easy to come by in game, especially if you play a lot. daily achievements could net you a gold
a single dungeon path per day would guarantee a gold + tokens which can be turned into gold and a chance at decent loot that could also be turned into gold
flipping things on the tp is not a hard thing to figure out if you put in the time that will also make you heaps.

dont be so cynical just because your efforts have presumably come up short

I don’t see what is wrong with buying gems. If not for the people who actually bought gems with real money, ArenaNet wouldn’t have existed in the first place.

You either spend your time farming mindlessly in the game or you spend it earning real money. The latter option earns you more gold over the same amount of time if you ask me so it makes better sense where gold farming is concerned.

DarkSpirit.7046:

I don’t see what is wrong with buying gems. If not for the people who actually bought gems with real money, ArenaNet wouldn’t have existed in the first place.

You either spend your time farming mindlessly in the game or you spend it earning real money. The latter option earns you more gold over the same amount of time if you ask me so it makes better sense where gold farming is concerned.

except that not all countries have the similar wage system as in the USA, and their pay may not be as high… so these players opt to earn their gold by farming mindlessly like you said…

DarkSpirit.7046:

You either spend your time farming mindlessly in the game or you spend it earning real money. The latter option earns you more gold over the same amount of time if you ask me so it makes better sense where gold farming is concerned.

I do not farm. Playing because it is nice way to spend free time. I do not earn anything during my free time, but I can save money. Working non-stop from morning to sleeping time isn’t really a good thing. Have to use some time to relax and that is what games are for.

Also to me it feels strange that people like to play some game, but they also pay money so they would not have to play it that much. :P

azizul.8469:

DarkSpirit.7046:

I don’t see what is wrong with buying gems. If not for the people who actually bought gems with real money, ArenaNet wouldn’t have existed in the first place.

You either spend your time farming mindlessly in the game or you spend it earning real money. The latter option earns you more gold over the same amount of time if you ask me so it makes better sense where gold farming is concerned.

except that not all countries have the similar wage system as in the USA, and their pay may not be as high… so these players opt to earn their gold by farming mindlessly like you said…

Sure if you get better returns by farming mindlessly then by all means. Minimum wage in Seattle, Washington where I live is $15/hour so does it make sense for us to farm mindlessly for gold? Probably not.

@Ameepa: Farming in the game is work to me because I would be forced to grind as I would be doing something that I dislike doing in the game.

I’ve bought 8 precursor from the trading post and got the torch precursor as a drop which I sold for roughly 70g. I get most of my money trough fractal drops and occasional dungeons and the only time I’ve flipped the trading post was with candy corn and even that was for a measly 10g profit.

Getting money these days isn’t hard compared to what it was a year ago. Few easy dungeon paths and maybe a temple event or two can already get you a fair bit of gold in few hours.

Bought my Leaf of Kudzu when it was about 500G+… Now it’s just…double the price of it..
It was all before the very first April Feature Pack, after that, it starts to shoot like a rocket..

Just recently I had the thought of crafting either a Frostfang or a Bifrost… but looking at the price of the precursor..about 1.3kG…I had no motivation. Cause there isn’t any new content for me to grind. Last time, I grinded Teq and Wurm daily and all the other dungeons and world bosses back when I was farming for a Leaf of Kudzu.

But now, I wouldn’t want to grind back the same mobs everyday plus double the effort for the price of it now.. It’s insane.. I rather farm teq daily hoping to get another Teq Hoard for the Sunless Spire Staff instead of making a Bifrost.

hmm it seems the thread has derailed from the original question of whether people are getting their precursor from TP (as oppose to from MF/drop) TO the discussion of farming gold for precursor….

i personally don’t like gambling on large scale, so that’s why i bought my precursors from TP.

From what I’ve seen most people either buy or try their luck at the forge, because otherwise the odds of getting the specific pre you want are astronomically low.

I got my Leaf of Kudzu as a drop from Risen Priest of Grenth a year or so ago, then Spark from the Colocal Queen a month back. Bought the Bard (70g at the time) to craft the Minstrel and sold it about 8-10 months back, bought the Hunter with the profits. Recently I’ve gotten the Chosen and another Hunter from throwing random trash rares in the forge.

I bought the precursor I wanted from the TP. 2 other precursors were dropped for me after that, for which I have no use, since I play classes who don’t use these weapons.

I’ve never even entertained the notion of buying a pre from the TP. To me it’s just the (morally) cheap way out of acquiring probably the most difficult items in the game.

I don’t consider it a win if I buy someone else’s good luck.

Personally, I’m rather blessed to have been awarded one from the forge. I’m probably one of a handful of people in the game who have bought nothing from the TP in order to assemble the legendary. That means EVERYTHING was farmed. 100g for icy runestones, and 20g for the appropriate recipes and that was it (not including the amount of mat’s farmed for crafting rares to use as forge fodder).

But as the question is “Do most buy their precursors off the TP”, and from what I’ve seen by talking to a lot of people about it, I’d be removing the “Do” from the OP’s title. If you’re not an insane farmer and a TP flipper then it’s pretty much a given that you’re going to buy your pre from the TP. There’s nothing legendary about it, besides the amount of gold and the time needed to farm it all.

With the reluctance of people to just throw their cash away on rares and/or exo’s as forge fodder, and until another method of acquisition is available (pre crafting), to me it seems like a decent portion of the playerbase would buy from the TP. For most it’s really not an option, it’s just something that has to be done to progress a legendary.

I got mine (Dusk) from the forge. I used to buy a bunch of weapons every few months and throw them in. Haven’t really tried since, and the weapon has just been sitting in my bank for the last four months. I’ve started calling it Dust.

I got three precursor drops (Not sure how, it seems I just got very lucky). They were Howl, Spark and Tooth of Frostfang. I sold Howl to help complete Meteorlogicus (and bought Storm, which was cheap at the time), and I used Spark to craft Incinerator. I still have Tooth of Frostfang, because I haven’t decided what to do with it yet. I also have the Bard and Rodgort’s flame, both of which I bought while they were cheap just in case I ever felt like crafting them.

I know my case is personally quite rare though. Most of my guildies have either given up on legendaries altogether, because they’ve never gotten a precursor drop, or they ended up buying a precursor, so if I had to guess, I’d say buying them is the norm for people with no luck. For the rest, it’s either the forge or the once in a rainbow moon drop. I’d guess forge drops are probably the biggest source of precursors being sold on the TP though.

Honestly, I don’t even bother with trying to get legendaries, let alone precursors. The sheer amount of time, trouble, grind, materials, RNG, etc., etc., etc., just isn’t worth it for items that I really don’t see any decisive advantage over good exotics in terms of gameplay. In fact, the only item above exotic-grade that I own on any of my characters is the Szygy (sp?) ascended amulet that I bought for my Norn female engineer from a laurel vendor a month or so back. I’d be much happier with getting good exotic armor sets and main weapons and accessories for all my level 80 characters, which I can actually do at a reasonable rate on TP or even via in-game drop, than waste my time chasing this particular chimaera.

Legendaries have lost most of their prestige since the game began, you can see them everywhere now and probably the biggest problem is they are stagnant, we have the same legendaries for 2 years now without any new weapons. I honestly think there needs to be new APPEALING prestige gear that is on the level of what the legendary weapons were when the game first started, and maybe pause with the constant barrage of cash shop weapons.

i’ve bough dawn, dusk, zap, bard, the legend all from tp. No precursor drop. 5k hour played.

Kobi Beef.3895:

Legendaries have lost most of their prestige since the game began, you can see them everywhere now and probably the biggest problem is they are stagnant, we have the same legendaries for 2 years now without any new weapons. I honestly think there needs to be new APPEALING prestige gear that is on the level of what the legendary weapons were when the game first started, and maybe pause with the constant barrage of cash shop weapons.

Legendaries never had real prestige… its all about repeating the same a thousand times or selling gems… both options says nothing about how good or bad you are. There is only one “prestige” skin in the game and that is Fractal weapons and it only display that you can do X fractal level. GW2 is not a game to show off prestige.

I bought mine after I found a permanent hair stylist contract. But buying one seems to be the only way to get one. I’ve played since beta, and it gnaws on me that some jockey in my guild who playes for 4 months already has 3 legendaries. So the profit of the PHSC got me a nice Dawn and a start into the mats.

Thanks everyone, after reading your replies I believe that most people buy their desired precursors from the TP and I agree with your analysis.

I have purchased 2 precursors from the TP. I’m presently massing exotics that I earn either as drops or from dungeon tokens. When my ele’s inventory is full I’ll take them to the forge combined with Mystic Forge stones. If I get a pre I’ll decide then if I want to make that given weapon or sell.

Personally, I’ve spent around 4 months farming and mystic forge gambling hoping to get Dawn and in the end I still had to spend 2 more months farming gold and buy the thing.
So unless you dream of wasting over 1000g like I did, you should just buy it.

Ayakaru.6583:

I bought mine after I found a permanent hair stylist contract. But buying one seems to be the only way to get one. I’ve played since beta, and it gnaws on me that some jockey in my guild who playes for 4 months already has 3 legendaries. So the profit of the PHSC got me a nice Dawn and a start into the mats.

Haha same, minus finding a contract. I have a friend, who has played 5-6 months now, who has gotten three expensive precursors by throwing random rares in. He also got a hairstylist contract after farming a handful of keys. Meanwhile, I’ve played a little over 1.5 years and I’ve had to buy all 5 precursors. I go through periods of throwing all my rares., using all my t5 to craft rares to forge, and nothing ever comes from it. I got Rage twice, but does anyone really count that as a grand precursor drop? You get 70-80 gold for it.

Made mine in the Mystic Forge – around 200g worth of rares for Spark.

I bought mine and this is how I saw it:

1. It would not be smart to wait for it to drop
2. It, however, DOES drop. This could contribute to dropping the price average lower than the average cost of forging it.
3. Placing a buy order increases my chances of getting it from someone who wants less than a forge investor would (AKA they got lucky [with a drop or quick forge] and don’t need the full amount to make a big profit.)

Therefore, me getting it through a buy order is essentially cheaper than if I got it as a drop. Hows that you ask? Isn’t getting it as a drop getting it for free? No. Anything I don’t sell is money lost. Or you could say, its money I would have gotten if I didn’t have a use for the item.

Mesket.5728:

Legendaries never had real prestige… its all about repeating the same a thousand times or selling gems… both options says nothing about how good or bad you are.

Honestly, I never did anything like farming to buy The Legend (for about 980 Gold) and crafting Bifrost. It just happened a few months ago, that I had enough money and enough material accumulated in my account bank.

Of course, I saved required materials for a long time instead of selling or using them (T6 stuff and unidentified dyes), and I did run a lot of dungeons and fractals and megaboss-events, but I never “farmed” them. I just did them when I felt like it. I would have run them even if there were no legendary weapons. It was all guild activity.

One thing that added to that was surely that I also took part in the trading post game at one time, but only for a short time to explore the possibilities of the trading post. It made me aware of how to buy and sell my regular stuff to get the most and pay the least from everything I sell or buy.

But all things put together, I would not say I farmed or traded. It just happened. After 2 years.

I bought The Lover from the TP. It took me about 7 months to save up the gold, but that was without farming and only playing a couple of hours a day. (The main thing I did was stop buying anything else I didn’t need.)

One of my guild mates got one from the Forge though. Took him a lot of tries (I don’t know how many exactly) but he’s really happy.

Neither. I didn’t buy it from the TP, nor did I get it as a random drop, nor through the mystic forge. Mine was given to me by a random forums goer

I bought my first precursor, but then, after I had made and sold my legendary, I kept thinking “why am I rewarding other players for being luckier than me?”

Since that time, I have vowed never to buy another precursor. I ended up getting The Lover out of the MF a while ago, so here I go again grinding my time away to make a legendary I don’t want, so I can sell it and buy stuff I do want.

My advice is to not bother with the legendary grind until you get a precursor by MF or drop. But then, I don’t WANT one. If you really want one, you will get it one way or the other, ya?

I bought 2 precursors, the storm for the meteorologicus and the leaf of Kudzu, Just 3 weeks later I got the Energizer… from a veteran dredge….

My first pre I bought with the cash from early AC runs, costing me 48 gold, the leaf of kudzu I traded with a friend for 300 gold… the energizer ‘paid’ me 350 gold….

I still want to make Bolt one day…
Those 3 (and maybe the howler and the spear) are the ones I like.

I am happy I couldn’t care for the GS’s (mostly because I (yes, me) find them ugly…)
I just see them everywhere. I use the Krysoar sword skin on my warrior, and for every player I see with the one I carry, I see 25-40 legendary GS’s. At least….

I can’t speak for everyone, but one guy in our guild has recently hit 101 pre cursors from the toilet. Its what he does. He invests everything to get materials to plop in there. My wife and I have over 8K hours between us – no drops and nothing from the toilet (but we don’t invest much of anything into it). She’s bought four pre’s and I’ve bought two. Anecdotally, I’d say most people are buying.

One bought (Legend), and one via drop here (Tooth of Frostfang)

From my own friendlists and guildies, the overwhelming majority simply buy them, though some forge.

I have forged all mine. Never bought one.

I always forged my own random precursor before buying another. Cept the 3 energizers I bought before the moot had effects haha. 15g precursors, sons.

All my legendaries had precursors bought from the TP or a friend, one precursor was received as a gift.

Bought 3, got 3 from forge and 1 from a drop.

I’ve flushed quite a bit down the toilet. Got a precursor once, so I can somewhat justifying all the flushing to myself lol. Wasn’t one I was interested in though, so I just sold it and bought a bunch of fun stuff I wanted.

If I ever seriously go for a particular precursor, I will just save up and buy. It’s one thing to get lucky and get a precursor. Whole nother thing to get the one you want.

Just as an aside, I have seen pre’s drop but nothing for me. The example I have is last WvW season (2) there were some particularly lucky people in our zerg.

One got the Tooth of Frostfang and 30 minutes later, someone else looted a Chaos Gun. A good night for those people.

well, you can’t buy them off a vendor.. so yeah