Guild Wars 2

Hey guys, so I’ve been playing gw2 for several months now. I have reached level 80 on 3 characters now and am thinking about getting a legendary weapon (Twilight). I am currently working on the precursor and I’m slowly getting there. I was wondering if it would be better/worth it to just buy dusk or twilight from the trade post rather than take the time to craft the whole thing.
Thanks in advance!

gw2bltc.com
That site allows you to compare the value of all the tradeable components versus the trading post price. You can expand or compact to view all of the base crafting materials or just the last steps.

That said, keep in mind that you aren’t actually crafting the precursor — you are completing a “collection”, i.e. a scavenger hunt. Some people love that; others … not so much.

Accordingly, my advice is:

• If your primary concern is time or money, buy from the TP.
• If you enjoy scavenger hunts and/or want to be instrumental in every step of creating your legendary, use the Collection method.
• If you’re on the fence, start the first collection for the precursor. It’s typically the least effort and the most fun.

My advice would be to look at what’s involved in crafting the precursor, compare that to the amount of gold you need to get and how you’re likely to go about getting it and decide which you’d prefer to do.

Personally I found crafting a precursor much more enjoyable and less stressful than trying to save enough gold (I can farm gold, but I get bored with it quickly). But I know other people hated it and consider farming gold relatively quick and easy.

Here’s the stages you’ll need to go through to craft it.
1) Complete The Experimental Nightsword collection.
2) Craft Dusk Experiment. (Check the requirements for the Nightsword Blade and Nightsword Hilt and be aware Deldrimor Ingots are either very expensive or can only be crafted once per day.)
3) Complete The Perfected Nightsword collection. (Note the requirements for the crafting aspect of this.)
4) Craft The Perfected Nightsword
5) Complete the Dusk collection. (This involves several Fractals, jumping puzzles and multiple runs of Silverwastes.)
6) Craft Dusk.

My approach was to go through all the stages and write down all the materials I’d need and things I’d need to do for each one (I was crafting The Legend so the list was different, but it’s the same idea for all of them). The resulting spreadsheet was a bit daunting (aka huge) but it enabled me to confirm that there was nothing on there which, on it’s own, was a problem. Nothing I couldn’t or wouldn’t do.

And as I was going though it completing the collections and the crafting stages felt a lot less overwhelming, because I was just working on that next little bit, than racing to make my slowly growing pile of gold match the ever-shifting price on the trading post (which is how I got my first precursor).

One thing to remember is that precursor crafting is expensive… it was meant to remove RNG, not cost. It may be cheaper than the TP, but you’re still looking at a significant cost. E.g. for Dusk, it’ll be ~650g, not including all the account bound currencies (karma, bandit crests, geodes, etc). On the TP, it’ll cost ~1000g… is that a worthwhile savings to you considering the time you’ll put in for the collections?

onevstheworld.2419:

One thing to remember is that precursor crafting is expensive… it was meant to remove RNG, not cost. It may be cheaper than the TP, but you’re still looking at a significant cost. E.g. for Dusk, it’ll be ~650g, not including all the account bound currencies (karma, bandit crests, geodes, etc). On the TP, it’ll cost ~1000g… is that a worthwhile savings to you considering the time you’ll put in for the collections?

You’re absolutely right that crafting a precursor shouldn’t be seen as a quick or cheap option because it’s neither. It’s only a way around relying on RNG or buying it from someone who got one through RNG.

But I was actually able to complete the collection faster than I was able to save up the 780g for my first legendary. Took me 7 months to save up the gold (from the point where I realised it wasn’t going to just happen and I needed to focus on it) vs. 5 to complete the collection.

Admittedly that may be partially because in the approximately 2 years between the two I’d gotten better at the game, but I think it’s also because I enjoyed the collection more so I was more driven to finish it. Whereas farming gold felt like I something I had to do, and then I’d want to take breaks to do stuff I enjoyed.