Guild Wars 2

Gw2 unlike most games has a habit of selling you things in multiple ways, but where some of these ways are complete ripoffs (let’s say 95% of the time at present) for the player. Not all of these pitfalls are readily apparent, so I thought it worthwhile to make a list of all of them.

Thread is meant to be helpful to players to shed light on things you should avoid spending materials on. Please feel free to contribute your own items to the list, as I will by no means be making a completed list. If you want to add things from the gem store feel free, but keep it objective and focusing on heavy offenders (i.e. cosmetics must have major flaws to be listed here). If you disagree with anything, state ‘why’. I’ll update as I go along.

Laurel Merchant:
-Buying Siege blueprints with laurels
-Buying tier _ crafting bags (1 laurel for 50s-1 gold worth of materials)
-Advanced harvesting tools
Explanations:
Unless you have infinite Laurels: better to buy siege blueprints with money. Advanced harvesting tools don’t give much of a buff so same thing. Tier _ crafting bags, same thing..it’s trading 1 laurel for 50s-1gold. By the 95% guidelines, most players won’t have infinite laurels and are better spending them on gear that can only be bought via laurels.

Heroics Notary:
-Buying superior siege equipment with heroics and badges of honour
Explanation: You should save your badges of honour for laurel merchant and other things like gifts of battles. Heroics are useless presently and should be thrown out if not for the idea that “one day” they might become useful. If you have a steady stream of over 2k bades, sure you might as well spend some but you will have 0 and infinte heroics if you keep buying from this notary. Using mystic force to upgrade basic to superior is also ‘generally’ cheaper…someone said that even in terms of spending badges it’s less expensive to do this (dont’ care to check).

Siege Merchant:
-Buying Basic siege equipment with silver or badges of honour
Explanation:
Trading post is cheaper. Don’t waste badges of honour on these for same reason as above.

Fractals:
-Fine “Mighty/Malign/whatever” Infusions (i.e. +5 power +5 agony)
Explanation:
If you are serious about fractals get a separate set of armour meant for them with +7 agony’s. Use WvsW infusions on your other set of armour. You will save money and get more stats per money spent.

Care to explain why these are bad? A couple of them I disagree with.

I think explanations for each entry are in order.

Mmmkay, I’ll add in explanation’s at the end of each. Remember I’m using a 95% guideline here. i.e:
-For 95% of the time….blank is a ripoff.
-For 95% of players…..blank is a ripoff

Laurels are easy to get. You can get upwards to 55 every 28 days. If you have no need to buy ascended stuff, you’re better off converting them to gold. The best way is to convert them to T6 bags and then sell the T6 mats.

Badges have very little use. You can use them to buy armor and weapons but any upgrades put in them are forever bound. Unless something was added with HoT, your best use for badge of honor is to convert them to siege and sell.

on fractal one, if you go with 7 ones you need 4x +10 and one +11 agony to cap 150, alternatively you can fit 5/5 for more bang in dmg output but need +16 agony ones

Ayrilana.1396:

Laurels are easy to get. You can get upwards to 55 every 28 days. If you have no need to buy ascended stuff, you’re better off converting them to gold. The best way is to convert them to T6 bags and then sell the T6 mats.

Badges have very little use. You can use them to buy armor and weapons but any upgrades put in them are forever bound. Unless something was added with HoT, your best use for badge of honor is to convert them to siege and sell.

If you spend that much time on the game, already have all the maxed gear you could ever want, don’t care for any cosmetic items like pets or tonics or event specific stuff… then yes you are in endgame and are better off converting everything you have into gold for the purposes of gems, skins, guild stuff. Max 55 per 28 days of daily play sessions correct, but that’s assuming you get the 20 laurels at the end….if you don’t need the laurels its better to just get the other stuff and sell directly for your gold. So I would argue its really up to 35 laurels per 28 days for endgame users. So ya, feel free to spend your 35 laurels for 35×3 mats and sell them for 35gold each month. 95% guideline though.

I think you just need to rephrase your usage of “not worth buying”. The items I mentioned are totally worth buying at all times. Players may prioritize other items based on their needs but this in no way makes these items not worth buying.

It’s like me saying that crafting ascended weapons or back items is not worth it because I could have used the gold to buy miniatures and tonics instead. Just because I chose to prioritize getting miniatures and tonics does not mean that ascended isn’t worth crafting. .

• Siege blueprints for laurels is definitely atrocious. It’s a relic of its times; same goes for those laurel gathering tools.
• I don’t see how crafting materials are a bad buy, if you get t6s, relative to other choices if you have gear from laurels already. Rings can be gotten from fractals, earrings can be gotten from commendations. The only thing you need are amulets, and how many of those do you really need?

• I think your complaint about superior siege from notaries doesn’t make much sense though. Gifts of Battle only have value if you’re going for a legendary. Forging siege is a terrible way to get value out of spirit shards, because you can only make one at a time, so it’s neither time efficient or cost efficient unless the mystic forger is up.

5 Elder Wood Logs =2s34c using buy orders ea = 11s70s
5 Mitril Ore = 83c using buy order ea = 4s15c
1 Spirit Shard

15s85c

Not gonna even count the cost of the original blueprint…

Superior Flame Ram TP buy order= 14s2c, even buy order is 18s15c. Even if you’re impatient now, you’re spending 2s30c less…. How is this cheaper considering the fact you’re spending a spirit shard which are limited? 2s30c is a pitiful value on a spirit shard when you could literally be like upgrading random mats or making eldritch weapons, and using the profits to buy siege. That might not be as cost effective, but it’s way faster.

You get more value out of Trebs and Catas, but those are also harder to get their regular blueprints. A Superior Cata costs 29s18c in buy orders, which case you get like 14s per spirit shard.

tl;dr Forging Trebs and Catas can be cost effective, but they’re still not time effective. It can be better to get Superior Arrow Carts and Superior Rams through notaries or simply just getting them off the TP.

http://www.gw2shinies.com/alchemy.php And just to show how bad it is; look at all these ways you can get value out of spirit shards. Notice how only Superior Catapult and Superior Golems are even on the list and they are not close to being the best methods.

Converting badges to money is a waste of time, which is why I do superior siege with notaries. But certainly this is its own problem— badges being crap and hard to acquire. This is the same reason I buy paper siege from the badge vendor as well; why would I waste my actual gold, a much more flexible currency? Or my mats which have so much more ways of being used.

• The Extra +5 infusions were never meant to be cost effective.

Finally, there also comes to a point where when you have enough bank, time tends to be more important than value. For example, karma forge salvaging is good value for karma, but it isn’t very time effective. If you’re poor and struggling to get enough gold, then this can be an easy way to gather some gold, but if you don’t need gold atm, there’s really no reason to go after it unless it’s tied to a daily.

• The things that I would personally put in my not worth buying list are boosters because it is unlikely it could ever pay for itself, and Black Lion keys or any of the dye packs simply because RNG. Home Portal Stones go there just because the home instance itself isn’t really convenient. And whatever the heck those 2 week passes are for.

• But ultimately, the only things I consider not worth buying is if there’s a better way to acquire the same thing.

A much more sensible suggestion would be to look through the full list of what’s available with each currency and consider which is best for you, rather than trying to declare that your preferences are the right choice for some arbitrary ‘percentage’ of players.

You know what my first priority for laurels was? Chauncey von Snuffles III. At the time I had no need for or interest in ascended equipment and I collect minis, so I determined that was the best use for me (I got Goedulf next). At various points I’ve also used them to buy T6 materials, again because I needed them more than extra ascended stuff.

I don’t regret either decision because I knew all my options so I knew that was the best choice for me at the time.

I don’t see a problem with buying anything with badges of honor. Those things are completely free. I have like 15k or something, and I buy siege with them all the time (or at least I did before WvW died.)

A good example of something not worth buying (the materials to craft it) would be ascended viper’s armor. You’re better off doing the mystic forge stat conversion to get it.

Ayrilana.1396:

A good example of something not worth buying (the materials to craft it) would be ascended viper’s armor. You’re better off doing the mystic forge stat conversion to get it.

That depends on how much of the ascended stuff you’ve accumulated. I had so much I had to start throwing it away, so I made a few viper’s pieces out of it. It cost me zero to craft 3 pieces of armor because I already had the mats.

Giver’s armor , especially the Chest & Leg armor.

Helm, Shoulders, Glove, Boots: +1% Boon duration
Chest, Legs: +1% Boon duration

If the concentration amounts were converted from Exotic Lvl 80 Nomad’s:
Coat: +96 Concentration —> 6.4%
Leg: +64 Concentration --> 4.27%
Helm: +43 Concentration —> 2.87%
Glove/Shoulder/Boot: +32 Concentration --> 2.13%

Set total < 20%

1% Boon duration is horrific. The new Commander’s , Minstrel’s , Vigilant, & Wanderer’s stats make it pitiful.

Chest: 63 Concentration = 4.2% Boon duration
Leg: 42 Concentration = 2.8% Boon duration
Helm: 28 Concentration = 1.87% Boon duration
Glove/Shoulder/Boots : 21 Concentration = 1.4% Boon duration

Even if the Giver’s armor had the concentration amounts, Superior Runes would give more of a bonus if you weren’t using them with the armor.
Superior Rune of Leadership = 30%
Superior Rune of Durability = 20%
Superior Rune of Surging = 15%
Superior Rune of Surging = 15%
Superior Rune of the Traveler = 15%

Plus a simple Platinum Doubloon is 4% Boon duration.

Giver’s weapons were changed from that terrible 1% boon duration. In comparison a Giver’s Pearl Quarterstaff is +20% condition duration , which is better than the 7 or 8% condition duration of Viper’s. If you convert +239 expertise it would be only +16% condition duration.

Fluffball.8307:

Ayrilana.1396:

A good example of something not worth buying (the materials to craft it) would be ascended viper’s armor. You’re better off doing the mystic forge stat conversion to get it.

That depends on how much of the ascended stuff you’ve accumulated. I had so much I had to start throwing it away, so I made a few viper’s pieces out of it. It cost me zero to craft 3 pieces of armor because I already had the mats.

You can say that about anything though.

I’m also basing my statement about its cost being more from what others have stated. I haven’t ran through the costs personally so someone is free to correct it if it’s wrong.

Ayrilana.1396:

A good example of something not worth buying (the materials to craft it) would be ascended viper’s armor. You’re better off doing the mystic forge stat conversion to get it.

You’d still need the exotic insignia for the stat conversion. Aside from the exotic insignia the cost for the ascended insignia (and the rest of the armor) is the same no matter what armor you craft, so I don’t quite get your point.

Or are you referring to the price of the recipes? You can get those as drops in the form of books, which can be traded in the tp. So buying these recipes from the exalted vendor is indeed a waste.

Ayrilana.1396:

I’m also basing my statement about its cost being more from what others have stated. I haven’t ran through the costs personally so someone is free to correct it if it’s wrong.

The worst part of viper’s is the non-traeable ascended mats that are hard to come by. But if you have them, you can’t sell them so you might as well use them.

BunjiKugashira.9754:

Ayrilana.1396:

A good example of something not worth buying (the materials to craft it) would be ascended viper’s armor. You’re better off doing the mystic forge stat conversion to get it.

You’d still need the exotic insignia for the stat conversion. Aside from the exotic insignia the cost for the ascended insignia (and the rest of the armor) is the same no matter what armor you craft, so I don’t quite get your point.

Or are you referring to the price of the recipes? You can get those as drops in the form of books, which can be traded in the tp. So buying these recipes from the exalted vendor is indeed a waste.

A post after that is where I stated that I was basing it on what others said and for someone to feel free to correct the statement if it was wrong.

Ayrilana.1396:

Fluffball.8307:

Ayrilana.1396:

A good example of something not worth buying (the materials to craft it) would be ascended viper’s armor. You’re better off doing the mystic forge stat conversion to get it.

That depends on how much of the ascended stuff you’ve accumulated. I had so much I had to start throwing it away, so I made a few viper’s pieces out of it. It cost me zero to craft 3 pieces of armor because I already had the mats.

You can say that about anything though.

I’m also basing my statement about its cost being more from what others have stated. I haven’t ran through the costs personally so someone is free to correct it if it’s wrong.

Then you’d have to rephrase it to “not worth it, if you do have ascended armor that is useless otherwise than to be converted, otherwise it’d be taking the cost of the ascended armor for granted.” Unless it’s actually cheaper to make an ascended armor piece and convert it via a viper insignia. In that case, it’s sort of interesting.

Also, in response to having the materials already, that’s not necessarily true that it didn’t cost anything. Even if it dropped for you, you could have just sold it instead of using it to make the armor.

ArchonWing.9480:

Ayrilana.1396:

Fluffball.8307:

Ayrilana.1396:

A good example of something not worth buying (the materials to craft it) would be ascended viper’s armor. You’re better off doing the mystic forge stat conversion to get it.

That depends on how much of the ascended stuff you’ve accumulated. I had so much I had to start throwing it away, so I made a few viper’s pieces out of it. It cost me zero to craft 3 pieces of armor because I already had the mats.

You can say that about anything though.

I’m also basing my statement about its cost being more from what others have stated. I haven’t ran through the costs personally so someone is free to correct it if it’s wrong.

Then you’d have to rephrase it to “not worth it, if you do have ascended armor that is useless otherwise than to be converted, otherwise it’d be taking the cost of the ascended armor for granted.” Which isn’t necessarily applicable to everyone.

Also, in response to having the materials already, that’s not necessarily true that it didn’t cost anything. Even if it dropped for you, you could have just sold it instead of using it to make the armor.

Those were two separate statements/ideas. Sorry. They weren’t connected. Turns out it was a bad example anyway but my fault for trusting what others were claiming without verifying myself first before posting.

It’s still a good idea, if you’re patient enough for ascended items to drop, though

ArchonWing.9480:

Also, in response to having the materials already, that’s not necessarily true that it didn’t cost anything. Even if it dropped for you, you could have just sold it instead of using it to make the armor.

You can’t sell the particular ascended mats needed for viper’s. The cost is either free if you play the content that drops them a lot, or massive time grind if you don’t.

Fluffball.8307:

ArchonWing.9480:

Also, in response to having the materials already, that’s not necessarily true that it didn’t cost anything. Even if it dropped for you, you could have just sold it instead of using it to make the armor.

You can’t sell the particular ascended mats needed for viper’s. The cost is either free if you play the content that drops them a lot, or massive time grind if you don’t.

Ok that makes more sense. And now I’m sorta annoyed because I wanted to make some. :p

But what about the damask and stuff? I’m generally referring to that, since that’s a big chunk of the costs.

ArchonWing.9480:

Ok that makes more sense. And now I’m sorta annoyed because I wanted to make some. :p

Never fear, that’s when the conversion in the MF is the easy way to go.

Heck I thought you was someone else with my first post (sorry about that).

You may not need those things if you’ve been in game for a while but others do if not. Truth I think the game provides enough economical hardships for players without finding new ways for them to buy things essential for play.

The siege Merchant is worth buying from towers in a pinch, but paper siege in general is pretty bad, which brings me to the next point.
The Heroics Notary is somewhat worth buying from, although a superior treb costing 2 wvw ranks is pretty outrageous. Personally, I have plenty badges of honor to spend, but I have very little gold to spend, and wvw is not profitable.

ArchonWing.9480:

• Siege blueprints for laurels is definitely atrocious. It’s a relic of its times; same goes for those laurel gathering tools.
• I don’t see how crafting materials are a bad buy, if you get t6s, relative to other choices if you have gear from laurels already. Rings can be gotten from fractals, earrings can be gotten from commendations. The only thing you need are amulets, and how many of those do you really need?

• I think your complaint about superior siege from notaries doesn’t make much sense though. Gifts of Battle only have value if you’re going for a legendary. Forging siege is a terrible way to get value out of spirit shards, because you can only make one at a time, so it’s neither time efficient or cost efficient unless the mystic forger is up.

This doesn’t make any sense. You are saying spending laurels on siege is bad but spending badges on siege is good. It should be one or the other. Badges aren’t easily replenished anymore and it costs ~150 for many weapons/armour/upgrades. Unless you are into endgame, you don’t want to be spending them on anything else. And spending 1 laurel on 3 T_ materials is always a good buy for everyone? That really makes no sense. Everyone should save them for buying ascended gear and upgrades. Once you have all you want for gear, then who cares spend laurels on whatever.

The title of the post is misleading and worse, the metric used to decide what is/is not worth buying is also misleading.

What the OP can say are things like:

• For new accounts, conserve laurels because there are things you’ll want that can’t be bought with other currencies (and then include such a list). I’d include home instance nodes, various minis, and of course, ascended recipes (although: those have an alternative source now, just less accessible).
• For existing accounts with plentiful laurels, here are a list of things that can be easily obtained with other currencies.

Or do what I do, which is to offer just the list of what’s worth spending laurels on, including Heavy Crafting Bags, which offer 50-70s worth of T6 mats, making it the most efficient way to turn laurels into gold at the moment.

Actually it is just a game, everything you spent in it can be invalidated anytime. Just like how the old legendaries were invalidated by the new, meta keeps shifting and gold keeps rolling

Cerby.1069:

ArchonWing.9480:

• Siege blueprints for laurels is definitely atrocious. It’s a relic of its times; same goes for those laurel gathering tools.
• I don’t see how crafting materials are a bad buy, if you get t6s, relative to other choices if you have gear from laurels already. Rings can be gotten from fractals, earrings can be gotten from commendations. The only thing you need are amulets, and how many of those do you really need?

• I think your complaint about superior siege from notaries doesn’t make much sense though. Gifts of Battle only have value if you’re going for a legendary. Forging siege is a terrible way to get value out of spirit shards, because you can only make one at a time, so it’s neither time efficient or cost efficient unless the mystic forger is up.

This doesn’t make any sense. You are saying spending laurels on siege is bad but spending badges on siege is good.

Yea so? How are laurels = badges? I’m not sure why you’re arguing an inconsistency when no consistency was intended in the first place. Why would you even compare the two? Laurels are time gated. Badges are not. Laurels can easily be converted into currency. Badges cannot. Of course, badges are better to spend on siege than not.

Buying siege with laurels is bad because you could buy t6 mats with laurels, sell the t6 mats, and get more siege anyways off the TP then if you bought them with the laurels. Can you even come up with a remotely similar comparison with badges?

Badges aren’t easily replenished anymore and it costs ~150 for many weapons/armour/upgrades.

So? Who cares about a resource that is so limited in use? I wouldn’t even care I had 30,000 badges. Badge gear is just exotic, and that can be gotten on the TP for cheap. It’s not like most stats are even cheaper because badge gear still costs gold. It could be worth it if you go for stuff like zerker. Of course, the badge vendor doesn’t sell the new stats though.

Simply put, you’re overvaluing your badges. They don’t buy anything useful besides siege and (not really) hero points. And maybe that Gift of Battle. But I don’t need that many legendaries…

I’ve already posted why I disagree with your view on badges, especially that part where I brought up that forging superior siege is horrifically inefficient. But that part is conveniently left out.

Unless you are into endgame, you don’t want to be spending them on anything else. And spending 1 laurel on 3 T_ materials is always a good buy for everyone? That really makes no sense. Everyone should save them for buying ascended gear and upgrades. Once you have all you want for gear, then who cares spend laurels on whatever.

No, everyone shouldn’t. That makes 0 sense. What kind of gear do you get from laurels? Jewelry. And everything except amulets doesn’t need laurels.You can’t get ascended weapons and armor from laurels besides the recipes so I have no idea what that’s even about. Ascended jewelry isn’t endgame. That’s laughable. It takes 80 laurels to get amulets and rings ascended. That means a new player that does nothing but log in for 2 months already has them.

If you’re defining someone that hasn’t reached endgame as not having ascended trinkets, I think it’s incredibly irresponsible to suggest that they make such a large expenditure for a new player to get the earrings (80 laurels + 100 ecto and improve stats less than amulets and rings), so I’m honestly not even sure who you are trying to give advice to. Generalizations like these are incredibly harmful. It’d be far more efficient to either work towards ascended weapon crafting or getting a nice set of runes and sigils.

Oh by the way, if we’re somehow not including endgame on this, why did you even bring up gifts of battle?

And yea, I’m discussing these things based on value, not based off an arbitrary cutoff point. Depending on what people do, I disagree if they should focus on gear or not. For example, ascended armor is somewhat questionable. But yes, even people that are fully geared have reason to maximize the value of their resources. I really do think it matters. Not even barring the fancy stuff, food and siege don’t make themselves.

Tier 6 bag is the only thing that is consistently worth buying. Everyone has infinite laurels, that’s a true thing. You get them for doing nothing, just log in. The only things that are worth buying are ascended gear, and once you’ve done that you never need to do it again… per character. Eventually you will run out, maybe, at which point the Tier 6 bag is still worth what it always was worth.

Kal Spiro.9745:

Tier 6 bag is the only thing that is consistently worth buying.

I think the ascended crafting mats are worth more money now. T6 is still good to have though.

-Obsidian shards from the HoT Mastery vendors. Compared to Balth Temple, they cost +350 karma and 25 map currency. Just silly. Balth may not always be open, but it is often enough and you can buy all the shards you may need at once when it is open.

Fluffball.8307:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Tier 6 bag is the only thing that is consistently worth buying.

I think the ascended crafting mats are worth more money now. T6 is still good to have though.

I think it largely depends on whether you get two from the chest. This assuming that T6 still nets you 1G per laurel.

thehipone.6812:

-Obsidian shards from the HoT Mastery vendors. Compared to Balth Temple, they cost +350 karma and 25 map currency. Just silly. Balth may not always be open, but it is often enough and you can buy all the shards you may need at once when it is open.

Come to think about it, there’s a lot of terrible ways to get Shards. :p

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Obsidian_Shard

Not everything needs to be ‘optimal’ for example re the fractals use case given above, sure its optimal to have separate sets of armor, but often its more fun to go with impulse buys, you see something you want and you go for it without analyzing the pros and cons to death.

Its about getting pleasure from your actions. If you spend all your time trying to pick out the perfect most cost efficient path then unless this is the path that gives you most pleasure its ultimately a false economy.

Well, there’s definitely a lot of stuff that’s subjective.

For example, if someone asked me if they should save gold for some ascended armor or to get the copper salvage kit, I would actually tell them to aim for the later, because I don’t think ascended armor gives that much of an advantage, but I think the salvage kit would enhance gameplay a lot more by making things faster.

But that’s disputable. I just don’t place a very high value on ascended armor (I actually don’t think it’s worth it), but I do prioritize ascended weapons.

I have crafted ascended armor, but I don’t feel like I’d be missing too much with the exotic counterparts. It’s honestly more for the sake of completeness than necessity, so I see it as a luxury. For an extreme example, look at ascended backpieces.

A lot of this game is just easy enough so that pretty much everything is a luxury, but I certainly don’t mind helping people find better ways to said luxuries or ways to improve their game experience. But honestly, because of this, there are just so many things I’d consider useless that if you blew your money upon it, I can’t really say anything, because you’re probably doing fine anyways. On the other hand, if you always feel like you can’t get what you want, then we should really have a discussion.