Precursors -- Craft or Buy?

Precursors -- Craft or Buy?

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Posted by: HappilyInsane.5840

HappilyInsane.5840

So I was farming events in Auric Basin, and in the squad I bought up that I was crafting the Legend precursor. Then someone said that I’d be better off just buying off the TP.

Is this true? Currently the Legend off the TP is 1280g, which is a lot. I’m pretty sure crafting is cheaper, but is anyone sure? Because all this time gating is really annoying :P

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Posted by: Asclepios.4295

Asclepios.4295

At the very moment I am replying, you would save about 100g by crafting it compared to buying it at TP.

That being said, buying it at tp means you don’t have to spend long hours going through the collections. If you use this time to farm instead, then yes, buying it off the TP is a lot cheaper.

Some precursors are a lot cheaper to buy at TP regardless.

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Posted by: BattleRattle.5420

BattleRattle.5420

At the very moment I am replying, you would save about 100g by crafting it compared to buying it at TP.

That being said, buying it at tp means you don’t have to spend long hours going through the collections. If you use this time to farm instead, then yes, buying it off the TP is a lot cheaper.

Some precursors are a lot cheaper to buy at TP regardless.

Completely agree with this, however I recently finished making Nevermore and personally I quite enjoyed the collections for the story part. That said I did put a lot of time in on farming mats/gold, so I guess it all comes down to how much time/effort/gold you are willing to put into it.

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Posted by: General Health.9678

General Health.9678

It’s annoying if you’re rushing.
If you’re making your legendary weapon in a legendary amount of time – so we’re talking a minimum of months to a year for most people – then the time gating isn’t an issue.
Most people talk about crafting a legendary in the space of a few days and get hung up on the cost of one of the mats. Let’s say leather. If you were making it over the course of a year you’d easily get the leather you needed in that time.
If 1280 gold is too much for you in one go then craft it over time, otherwise I’d just buy it and spend my time doing something else.

Blame Abaddon, he loves your tears.
pve, raid, pvp, fractal, dungeon, world clearing, legendary questing.. Zapped!

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Posted by: Ayrilana.1396

Ayrilana.1396

Also remember to take into account the time spent gaining all of the account bound mats and completing the collections when deciding if you were to craft the precursors. IMO, a savings of 100G isn’t worth it compared to the time spent.

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Posted by: Leon de Damasco.8105

Leon de Damasco.8105

Tbh, is the only way to have Nevermore, is not about the cost. If you want Nevermore, you know you going to craft.
That said, there are many pages up-to-day about cost/benefits, crafting or buying. Investigation is a good way to not regrets.

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Posted by: HappilyInsane.5840

HappilyInsane.5840

Also remember to take into account the time spent gaining all of the account bound mats and completing the collections when deciding if you were to craft the precursors. IMO, a savings of 100G isn’t worth it compared to the time spent.

Well there’s not really much else I can do in game currently. I’ve exhausted most of the content. So having something to do is nice. Plus, the collections are pretty fun!

And thanks everyone for the surprisingly quick responses! <3

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Posted by: cephiroth.6182

cephiroth.6182

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Posted by: Illconceived Was Na.9781

Illconceived Was Na.9781

  • If your focus is time or cost, buy it off the TP.
  • If you are interested in having fun along the way or want to be more invested in the process, then use the collection method.

There are countless posts in these very forums from people who tried to save money (or time, thinking the collection would be “faster”) expressing frustration at nearly every step in the process of collecting. There are scavenger hunts (free from costs, costly in time) and huge amounts of mats required (cost savers hate buying from the TP and then feel the grind of farming them).

tl;dr those who ask the question (craft? or buy?) should purchase from the TP; they’ll be far happier in the long run (and the short run, too).

John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”

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Posted by: Ayrilana.1396

Ayrilana.1396

I think the only precursors worth crafting are zap, spark, and dusk.

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Posted by: Aidan Savage.2078

Aidan Savage.2078

https://gw2efficiency.com/crafting/legendaries will tell you which precursors are cheaper to craft vs selling the materials you would have used in the collection and buy it.

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Posted by: sorudo.9054

sorudo.9054

but ask yourself this, how much time does it take to get the gold for a precursor compared to the amount of time it takes to craft it?
if you can save months if not a year just by buying it then i see buying it as a more cost efficient thing, who says that you have any interest in the precursor ones you are just 50% done….

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Posted by: Danikat.8537

Danikat.8537

I’m currently crafting The Legend too. So far I much prefer crafting it to when I saved up 800g to buy The Lover a few years ago.

I’ve not actually been keeping track of the cost (I should have thought of that) but I’m pretty sure I’m not going to spend anything close to what the finished precursor costs. I sold a Gallant Greatsword I’ve been holding onto for ages, which got me 110g and I’ve periodically sold spare crafting materials (mainly food) but other than that I’ve not done anything special to get gold and I don’t even do the daily most days. I’d say I normally make about 1-2g per day. I’ve been working on it since April so if I’d been playing every day that would be another 100g.

I think some websites calculate it using the cost of crafted items, e.g. Spiritwood Planks, whereas I always buy the most basic components (logs) and craft from there. But of course it also helps that I had, or could easily get, a lot of the items. For example I’ve only bought 1 ectoplasm. Most of what I’ve bought is logs.

I think it’s going to take me about the same amount of time. It took me 7 months to save up enough to buy The Lover. I started working on The Legend in April and I’m about 1/2 way so it will probably be about 6 months in total. (At the moment I’m deliberately slowing myself down by not allowing myself to buy the Stabalising Matrixes I need until I’ve got enough Fractal Relics for the Gift of Ascension I need to complete the Spinal Blades because I’ve been working on that for literally years and never bothered to finish it.)

But most importantly I’m finding this way much more fun. I think it’s partially because each little part feels like progress. When I was just saving gold I’d finish playing for the day, add 2g to my slowly growing savings and feel like I’d hardly gotten anywhere. Now I can often check off at least one item on my list (even if that’s only part of part of a collection, like 1 glob of elder spirit residue) and feel like I’m getting somewhere.

But it’s also because it’s more varied. Farming gold puts pressure on you to do the things which earn the most gold, and to do them over and over and over again. Precursor collections push you into different areas of the game, so there’s more variety. Which can be annoying if it’s something you don’t like, but at least it’s not the same thing all the time.

Danielle Aurorel, Dear Dragon We Got Your Cookies [Nom], Desolation (EU).

“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”

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Posted by: Aidan Savage.2078

Aidan Savage.2078

Generally, the collections themselves dont take much time, it’s WHAT the collections and crafting the iterations need.

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Posted by: Tumult.2578

Tumult.2578

Just one thing I didn’t notice in the thread so far.
It takes a certain amount of inventory and bank slots and even additional character slots, to play the game effectively and everyone is likely a little different in what they need, but you will need to spend much more on those if you are crafting rather than buying a precursor. The value of those expenses continue to give after it is crafted but it is still a significant cost for crafting only, that doesn’t appear to be included in any crafting cost program or website.

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Posted by: Esquilax.3491

Esquilax.3491

The trick is to place a buy order, not buy outright. I got The Legend for 900g.

What happens is people find precursor drops (unfair, I know). Then they list it for 1200g. That’s a lot of gold so not many people are willing to buy outright. So it sits, then someone else finds one and undercuts them and they get annoyed. After repeat process a couple of times they just fill the highest buy order.

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Posted by: sirsquishy.2619

sirsquishy.2619

Craft the Pre if you want to feel like you owned it. Its a time investment more then anything and the quests/steps are very interesting if you are into Lore and the feeling of ‘completeness’ Else just buy it on the TP.

But what I would do is take the difference of the cost from Crafting it to buying it and drop that in the MF to RNG for your Pre. You may get lucky and obtain it then. Either way you’ll end up spending the same.

So tons of options there.

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Posted by: Ayrilana.1396

Ayrilana.1396

You don’t need additional character/bag/bank slots in order to craft. Now you may if you hoard everything else in the game but the limitation has nothing to do with crafting.

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Posted by: Behellagh.1468

Behellagh.1468

You can always check the crafting price at sites like GW2efficiency. Otherwise looking to kill time and don’t mind, craft.

We are heroes. This is what we do!

RIP City of Heroes

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Posted by: Danikat.8537

Danikat.8537

Just one thing I didn’t notice in the thread so far.
It takes a certain amount of inventory and bank slots and even additional character slots, to play the game effectively and everyone is likely a little different in what they need, but you will need to spend much more on those if you are crafting rather than buying a precursor. The value of those expenses continue to give after it is crafted but it is still a significant cost for crafting only, that doesn’t appear to be included in any crafting cost program or website.

Why would you need extra bag, bank or character slots?

I agree it can be useful to have more than 1 character at some points, for example if you’re farming nodes it will go faster if you have multiple characters to do it, but you don’t actually need them. Also you have to have HoT to have access to precursor crafting so you’ll have at least 5 slots anyway.

I don’t know why you’d need extra bank or bag space either. At some points you need to hold onto items until you’ve finished a collection, but never enough to fill even 1 (20 slot) bag. There are some steps where you need to craft items that need a lot of raw materials, but you can do that in stages so it doesn’t take up much space.

(For what it’s worth I have 4 bank tabs total, no extra bag slots, no storage expanders and I’ve not had a problem, even when I’m getting ahead of myself and collecting stuff for stages I’ve not reached yet.)

Danielle Aurorel, Dear Dragon We Got Your Cookies [Nom], Desolation (EU).

“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”