Guild Wars 2

I had always thought that if I got a pre-cursor for a Legendary, I’d just sell it, because I’d never go after one myself. In fact I got one once from the Claw event, forget what it was, I think a wand? And I sold it.

Now I’m entertaining Legend/Bifrost. I really like how Bifrost looks, and would look great on my Elementalist.

But I’m not crazy about it’s base stats. I have quite a bit of my condition damage wrapped up in my current staff. 179 Condition and a Corruption Sigil. Bifrost trades that out for Toughness (which I like to carry in half my armor so it’s not so weapon dependent, though other than siege/wall defense occasionally with S/F, I mostly stick with my staff.

Now, do most people not really care so much for the stats on the Legendary and end up using it as a ‘skin’? If you do that, what happens to the Legendary status of the item? I know with the addition of Ascended items that Legendary items might then get a bump to another level in the future so they are a wee bit better than Exotics. If you ‘skin’ a Legendary, is it still Legendary and eligible for the bump later?

Or when you go for a Legendary, you have to be content with the stats it has on it?

People do transmute the skin of a legendary onto other items to get better stats.

But no one knows yet if those transmuted items will be upgraded if/when Ascended items are added and legendaries get better stats.

Danikat.8537:

People do transmute the skin of a legendary onto other items to get better stats.

But no one knows yet if those transmuted items will be upgraded if/when Ascended items are added and legendaries get better stats.

Ok thanks. Sort of a scary proposition. All ‘pie in the sky’ at this point for me, I don’t even have the precursor. I was just starting to consider what I’d do if I happened to get Legend. I guess what I might do at that point is start building up all the raw materials and then maybe let them sit in a corner.

I have a bad feeling it’ll be non-transferrable. I mean, how would they do that? If I took Bifrost and put it on a 10th level white item, would it bump the stats so I had a Legendary 10th level item, relative to say, a yellow of that level? Would the rule be “only when you apply it to an Exotic or better do we then bump the ‘base’ that you put it on to Legendary values”?

It seems like it would be a monstrous proposition to track how that would work. Other than the look, once you skin a Legendary onto something else now, does the resulting item say Legendary or Transmuted? I’m concerned there’s nothing saved about that item that would indicate it’s Legendary?

Thanks again.

That is exactly what I’ve been wondering.

When you transmute an item you’re technically creating a completely new one from two existing ones. The name is carried over from whichever skin you keep (usually, I’ve noticed it doesn’t always work with the HoM skins) but everything else about the item comes with the stats. So technically when you transmute a legendary skin onto an exotic what you’ve got at the end is still an exotic and not a legendary. But with a tag saying ‘transmuted’ added.

I don’t know enough about how the item system works from the programming/database side to know if it’s even possible for Anet to identify what skin a transmuted item has, so it might not be possible for them to upgrade these items, even if they want to.

As far as I know Anet haven’t said anything about how it will work yet. I’m not sure if they’ve even given it much thought or if they’re leaving it until they actually start planning to add Ascended weapons. (Or maybe they’re trying to work out if it’s possible before they say anything.)

So yeah, all up in the air at the moment. Personally I think people who transmute legendaries are taking a big risk and if I get one before Ascended weapons come out I don’t think I’d take that chance (I’m not a min/maxer so it doesn’t matter that much to me anyway), but ultimately it’s up to them. At least the ones who read the forum regularly should know the risk they’re taking.

I guess if I happen to pull it off, I’ll just leave it as is for the time being as well. Carry it around for show and tell and then use my other staff when I have to do something.

I’d be hard pressed to make up for that much condition in armor, because not only do I have the big 179 number, I also have that Sigil that stacks up to 25, so I really tied most of it up in the weapon, which seemed to make sense to me in the event I wanted to go with a weapon and build that wasn’t so condition heavy, I wouldn’t be swapping my armor out.

Thanks for the discussion and feedback. Much to think about.

Danikat.8537:

That is exactly what I’ve been wondering.

When you transmute an item you’re technically creating a completely new one from two existing ones. The name is carried over from whichever skin you keep (usually, I’ve noticed it doesn’t always work with the HoM skins) but everything else about the item comes with the stats. So technically when you transmute a legendary skin onto an exotic what you’ve got at the end is still an exotic and not a legendary. But with a tag saying ‘transmuted’ added.

I don’t know enough about how the item system works from the programming/database side to know if it’s even possible for Anet to identify what skin a transmuted item has, so it might not be possible for them to upgrade these items, even if they want to.

As far as I know Anet haven’t said anything about how it will work yet. I’m not sure if they’ve even given it much thought or if they’re leaving it until they actually start planning to add Ascended weapons. (Or maybe they’re trying to work out if it’s possible before they say anything.)

So yeah, all up in the air at the moment. Personally I think people who transmute legendaries are taking a big risk and if I get one before Ascended weapons come out I don’t think I’d take that chance (I’m not a min/maxer so it doesn’t matter that much to me anyway), but ultimately it’s up to them. At least the ones who read the forum regularly should know the risk they’re taking.

Not that big of a risk. At worse you need to get another ascended weapon plus another crystal. Still easier than getting a legendary. Identifying the items would be trivial. That information is stored in their database, it is read every time you load a character.

Khisanth.2948:

Danikat.8537:

That is exactly what I’ve been wondering.

When you transmute an item you’re technically creating a completely new one from two existing ones. The name is carried over from whichever skin you keep (usually, I’ve noticed it doesn’t always work with the HoM skins) but everything else about the item comes with the stats. So technically when you transmute a legendary skin onto an exotic what you’ve got at the end is still an exotic and not a legendary. But with a tag saying ‘transmuted’ added.

I don’t know enough about how the item system works from the programming/database side to know if it’s even possible for Anet to identify what skin a transmuted item has, so it might not be possible for them to upgrade these items, even if they want to.

As far as I know Anet haven’t said anything about how it will work yet. I’m not sure if they’ve even given it much thought or if they’re leaving it until they actually start planning to add Ascended weapons. (Or maybe they’re trying to work out if it’s possible before they say anything.)

So yeah, all up in the air at the moment. Personally I think people who transmute legendaries are taking a big risk and if I get one before Ascended weapons come out I don’t think I’d take that chance (I’m not a min/maxer so it doesn’t matter that much to me anyway), but ultimately it’s up to them. At least the ones who read the forum regularly should know the risk they’re taking.

Not that big of a risk. At worse you need to get another ascended weapon plus another crystal. Still easier than getting a legendary. Identifying the items would be trivial. That information is stored in their database, it is read every time you load a character.

But what if getting an Ascended weapon is rather difficult, relative to my play style? If I leave the Legendary weapon as is, it would get bumped to Ascended status (presumably), and I wouldn’t need to go get an Ascended weapon, I’ve done my work, no?

But if I used it as a skin on an Exotic, and it’s lost it’s qualification for insta-upgrade (again, assuming that’s what they do), then as you say, I would have to get an Ascended first to transmute it on, which if they start out only being available in the fractals, for example, I would never be able to get.

So that would be a bit unfortunate. I guess if I do happen to get a Legendary built before all this happens, I’ll just put it in the bank for awhile.

The issue is that even if legendary weapons aren’t transmuted now for the stats you want, in the future when they are upgraded you will still need to transmute the ascended weapon stats into the legendary anyways. Its just a matter of spending the trans-stone now rather than later and benefiting from having a cool skin with the right stats.

There is a chance that the same thing will occur as with ascended rings, not all stat combinations will be available to get right away. With that chance I gladly transmuted my Howler to get it the right stats in hopes that it may be ascended and have the right stats then.

In either case – its your choice:
Transmuting now MAY cost you 2 trans stones and maybe the additional effort to getting an ascended weapon, but you have a chance that you may not have to get the new weapon (due to the “grandfathering” speculation).
Transmuting later WILL cost you 1 trans stones AND cost you the effort of getting an additional ascended weapon.

notebene.3190:

But what if getting an Ascended weapon is rather difficult, relative to my play style? If I leave the Legendary weapon as is, it would get bumped to Ascended status (presumably), and I wouldn’t need to go get an Ascended weapon, I’ve done my work, no?

But if I used it as a skin on an Exotic, and it’s lost it’s qualification for insta-upgrade (again, assuming that’s what they do), then as you say, I would have to get an Ascended first to transmute it on, which if they start out only being available in the fractals, for example, I would never be able to get.

So that would be a bit unfortunate. I guess if I do happen to get a Legendary built before all this happens, I’ll just put it in the bank for awhile.

Not really an issue unless you are impatient. They HAVE mentioned numerous times that obtaining ascended items will be available through all areas of the game. It is not a question of IF but WHEN.

Ok thanks folks. I thought I had read that they would ‘adjust’ the Legendary weapons to be the same as ascended, much as the existing Legendaries you get now are the same as Exotic. But either way, my understanding, whether right or wrong is moot.

If they do happen to bump it up, it’ll ‘still’ be the stats I “don’t” want, and I’ll have to go find an Ascended weapon that has the stats that I ‘do’ want to put the skin on, is that right? So like Vox said: Is it really worth sitting on for ‘one’ little Trans Crystal? Probably not.