Guild Wars 2

So I’ve been trying to get my hands on the lightward battlestaff for quite some time. Apparently it can be looted from airship cargos. So I decided I’d spend a solid week in VB just opening airship cargos. I must have opened atleast 500 airship cargos and got nothing. It’s on the TP, however it’s selling for 460 gold. I don’t want to spend that much gold on a skin that isn’t even a pre, mystic forge or legendary weapon. So I’m just curious what the drop rate on these are and if Anet has any plans to increase its drop rate.

Drop rate is low. The fact that you opened 500 confirms that; the price on the TP does, too. When you look at champ bags (which use a similar mechanic), the drop rate on any exotic is super low, so we can presume that it’s not going to be that much different for airship cargo.

As for whether it’s worth 460g — only you can decide if it’s worth that for you. I wouldn’t bother comparing it to precursors, because the supply of those includes lots of sources. Sure, they have a tiny drop rate, but they have a tiny drop rate from all sorts of things, including the mystic forge.

I didn’t think it was worth nearly 500g either, so I put in a buy order for the high 200s. At some point, people were farming the heck out of VB and the price dropped suddenly and I managed to pick up one. The price has gone back up again, because people are out farming other zones (and some folks have extra coin to spend: lower supply, higher demand).

tl;dr put in a buy offer for the amount you are willing to pay today then forget about it — it will fulfill whenever it does. (Or, if you decide you can’t wait for “whenever”, you’ll be more comfortable upping your offer — either way, it’s less agonizing.)

Got mine the way IWN described. Worth the try.