Guild Wars 2

Hi,

I believe it was around last year that you guys reintroduced a way to get the old Halloween skins via the mystic forge. Did you stealth remove or nerf the recipe?

Can anyone confirm if these can still be pulled from the forge? Thanks in advance.

They can be pulled from the forge, but they are somewhere in the precursor level of rarity, so you should expect to get a precursor just as well as getting the skin you’re after.

In other words, not likely, else not without a large investment.

CETheLucid.3964:

They can be pulled from the forge, but they are somewhere in the precursor level of rarity, so you should expect to get a precursor just as well as getting the skin you’re after.

In other words, not likely, else not without a large investment.

Do you have proof of this? Before this change was made known tons of skins flooded the market. I’m talking about the one’s that are masterwork quality with stats, not just a skin. There are still greatsaw skins of that variety but there haven’t been any from the ghastly grinning in quite a while.

Shortly after a dev acknowledged it was released earlier than intended, the supply seemed to dry up and has been ever since. In fact the regular skin is actually going up. If there was a steady supply I would think that would not be the case…

The fact that there are 0 of those skins on the market are what makes me question. Has anyone in the recent past pulled one of those skins from the forge?

Roquen.5406:

Do you have proof of this?

No.

I understand what you’re asking, that it’s a masterwork shield with the ghastly skin. Maybe they closed it up as you said.

CETheLucid.3964:

Roquen.5406:

Do you have proof of this?

No.

I understand what you’re asking, that it’s a masterwork shield with the ghastly skin. Maybe they closed it up as you said.

Can I please get a Dev response on this?

Roquen.5406:

Do you have proof of this? Before this change was made known tons of skins flooded the market. I’m talking about the one’s that are masterwork quality with stats, not just a skin. There are still greatsaw skins of that variety but there haven’t been any from the ghastly grinning in quite a while.

Two have sold in the last few weeks. The API for the shield item seems to be completely broken, you can’t track it on any third party site and on the trading post it doesn’t show up even when there are some posted. You have to untick ‘only show available’.

Roquen.5406:

Shortly after a dev acknowledged it was released earlier than intended, the supply seemed to dry up and has been ever since. In fact the regular skin is actually going up. If there was a steady supply I would think that would not be the case…

See above. The skin is available but the API is bugged and thus hidden from the wider community.

The other important fact is this: Not many people forge shields to try and get the shield precursor. The greatsaw and scythe staff have the big advantage of their respective weapon types having popular precursors. People forge greatswords and staffs all the time. Given this the actual Ghastly shield is probably much rarer than the skin itself and may well never have a significant impact on Ghastly shield skin item.

Amurond.4590:

Two have sold in the last few weeks. The API for the shield item seems to be completely broken, you can’t track it on any third party site and on the trading post it doesn’t show up even when there are some posted. You have to untick ‘only show available’.

See above. The skin is available but the API is bugged and thus hidden from the wider community.

The other important fact is this: Not many people forge shields to try and get the shield precursor. The greatsaw and scythe staff have the big advantage of their respective weapon types having popular precursors. People forge greatswords and staffs all the time. Given this the actual Ghastly shield is probably much rarer than the skin itself and may well never have a significant impact on Ghastly shield skin item.

How do you know if 2 were sold in the last few weeks if you can’t track it? I am aware that you can uncheck to show what has shown up on the TP but that doesn’t mean there are any actually on the TP. I’ve checked sporadically and as I said before I haven’t seen one since they were first “leaked”. And there were many showing up.

As for your other points…I find it highly unlikely that the reason it’s not showing up is because it’s broken on the API. Plenty of people forge every day, both shields, and four random weapons. Both of those would have a chance to spit out the shield.

In the 2 years since it’s been “added”, there haven’t been any since the that first week from what I can tell. Not to mention the fact that the ghastly grinning shield skin keeps going up. If there was a steady supply feeding in then it would stabilize at some point much like the other skins are.

This is why I question if it actually still drops. What you are saying and what we see on the trading post does not add up.

Roquen.5406:

How do you know if 2 were sold in the last few weeks if you can’t track it? I am aware that you can uncheck to show what has shown up on the TP but that doesn’t mean there are any actually on the TP. I’ve checked sporadically and as I said before I haven’t seen one since they were first “leaked”. And there were many showing up.

I’ve seen 2 posted and they were sold. The highest was 1195g. The other was ~1100g, not sure on exact prices. There were never ‘many showing up’ for the actual shield item. There were only ever a few on the TP at most. In fact I check it every day and I’ve only ever seen more than 1 listed at once.

Roquen.5406:

As for your other points…I find it highly unlikely that the reason it’s not showing up is because it’s broken on the API. Plenty of people forge every day, both shields, and four random weapons. Both of those would have a chance to spit out the shield.

You misunderstood. The reason it’s not showing up on third party sites is because of broken API; not why the item isn’t being posted on the TP.

As for plenty of people forging shields… to the same extent as GS and staffs? Well, this all conjecture, but I’m going to bet it’s not even close. Not even remotely close, actually. And four random weapons means a much larger pool of possible results. It’s probably as rare as a precursor, and is a weapon type that isn’t as regularly forged as others. Hence the rarity.

Roquen.5406:

In the 2 years since it’s been “added”, there haven’t been any since the that first week from what I can tell. Not to mention the fact that the ghastly grinning shield skin keeps going up. If there was a steady supply feeding in then it would stabilize at some point much like the other skins are.

This is why I question if it actually still drops. What you are saying and what we see on the trading post does not add up.

I’m not sure where you’re getting your 2 year number from. I think they did try to add them some time ago and it was buggy and then earlier this year in April they re-released them earlier than intended. The third party sites still attempt to track the original ghastly shield item rather than the re-released one, and even the re-released one is bugged because even when some are posted on the TP it shows the supply as 0 unless you actually click on the item.

Anyway you’re just repeating yourself now. There is no steady supply of them coming in, correct. The supply is very low; and and unless Anet buff the drop rate it will always be so low that it will not effect the shield skin price, due to the reasons stated above.

Yes, it still drops. Two were posted and sold within the last few months. Correcting my earlier ‘few weeks’, time flies. I think the 1195g one sold some time in September.

They are more rare than precursors, at least a whole magnitude (eg at least 10 times more rare) of more rare. If that wouldnt be the case the price would have dropped to 100g or less alrady considering how many precursors get pulled out per day.

Just because two were put up for sales in the last couple months doesn’t prove they still drop from the forge.

Players do hold on to skins and then sell them later. I just sold, last week, some Holographic Dragon Wings I’ve been holding onto for years.

I’m guessing they haven’t been put back, yet.

Malediktus.3740:

They are more rare than precursors, at least a whole magnitude (eg at least 10 times more rare) of more rare. If that wouldnt be the case the price would have dropped to 100g or less alrady considering how many precursors get pulled out per day.

Do you have a source for how often they drop from the forge? Or is that an extrapolation based on comparing the prices and amount available for sale on the TP? (It’s a reasonable theory — I just like drop rate data so I can run my own estimates, so I’d be interested in seeing any posts about it.)

It is an estimate, we have someone in our guild who gets countless precursors per month from mystic forge but I never saw him report a Halloween skin. So I am quite sure it is way more rare.
There is no way the scythe skin for example would stay at 4k if it would drop with the same chance as the staff precursor.
Of course they could not drop at all anymore, but I think Anet would have told us about it.

But I can confirm that aetherskins still drop from mystic forge. It would be weird if they removed halloween skins but left aetherblade in.

Malediktus.3740:

They are more rare than precursors, at least a whole magnitude (eg at least 10 times more rare) of more rare. If that wouldnt be the case the price would have dropped to 100g or less alrady considering how many precursors get pulled out per day.

Well, while I think you’re exaggerating re: they’d drop to 100g, you could be right that they are much rarer. It’s hard to tell because regardless of rarity, the prices are going to conform to what their skin counterparts are. eg. compare greatsaw item being ~793g to scythe being ~3599g. That’s going to be the main factor in determining their price currently.

You’d have to think their drop rates aren’t equal and Anet carefully chose them based on their current prices and supply in the game (the skins) . Even considering the differences in demand, 793g vs 3599g and 12 supply vs 2 supply says different drop rates to me.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Just because two were put up for sales in the last couple months doesn’t prove they still drop from the forge.

Players do hold on to skins and then sell them later. I just sold, last week, some Holographic Dragon Wings I’ve been holding onto for years.

I’m guessing they haven’t been put back, yet.

That’s a good point you make but honestly I think it’s unlikely. I believe the various factors I’ve raised is enough to make sense of the very low supply. I could be wrong, there are aspects of the item that are buggy.

Amurond.4590:

You’d have to think their drop rates aren’t equal and Anet carefully chose them based on their current prices and supply in the game (the skins) . Even considering the differences in demand, 793g vs 3599g and 12 supply vs 2 supply says different drop rates to me.

• The Lightward Staff has a demand of 150 versus a (current) supply of 18. It’s priced at 400-500g.
• The comparable hammer has a demand of 35 against a supply of 20. It’s priced at 33-45g.

There’s no reason to suppose that the drop rates are drastically different, which would mean that the only difference affecting what we see on the TP (supply, demand, and price) has to do with the fact that people really like the staff (one of the few ‘melee’ rather than ‘caster’ skins) and aren’t much interested in the hammer. Plus, staffs are used by more profs and in more meta builds than hammers, which also tends to increase interest.

In other words, you can’t use the TP alone to guess at drop rates. You also have to consider popularity (both for the skin and for the particular item). Better yet would be to collect drop rate data or at least what Malediktus has offered: anecdotal evidence from a reliable source, someone who generates enough precursors to field an educated guess.

It could also be because greatswords are forged more often than staves. If more people forge greatswords the chance for a skin to appear increases.
Also the scythe is probably more sought after than the greatsaw.

Another Ghastly shield is up on the TP as of today. 1499g. Still need to untick ‘only show available’ to see it though.