Guild Wars 2

I think I’ll start the quest for a legendary weapon. I want Sunrise.

I thought I’d ask for some tips.

Is it still cheaper to buy the precursor off the Trading Post, or has the price inflated so high that gambling on the Mystic Forge is now the way to go? If so, what’s the best way to gamble? Four rare greatswords? Four exotic greatswords? Something else?

Another thing: One of my secondary characters has a set of magic find gear. Should i use him for farming or dungeons etc, or are ingredients for the legendary soulbound on acquire?

Thanks for your time.

1: Do not use MF gear in dungeons. It is something that is considered not done. You are performing less (so your partymembers have to make up for that) while you are getting better drops.

2: When running dungeons for money use the dungeon tokens (except the ones you need for your gift) to buy exotic greatswords to throw them in the mystic forge. When you didn’t get lucky on the greatsword in drops or in the forge and you have everything else. Keep doing this till you have the money and then buy it.

Depending on your point of reference some of the precursors have actually dropped in price. http://www.guildwarstrade.com/item/29169-dawn

MF gear is best used when you know you will be killing a lot of things which should be relatively easy to kill. Using MF gear in dungeons is counter productive considering most mobs you fight there are silvers, champions, legendaries or mobs which simply give no loot(you can identify these because they don’t give any exp or sigil stacks). For the purpose of getting a precursor you will also want to stick to lv50+ maps except for the events with the bonus chest.

I would say most of all take your time with things. If you try to do too much than you might burn out and not feel like you want to do it any more. So again take your time and enjoy the journey. Also good luck and happy hunting

Thanks for the advice, but I’d still like my questions to be answered. Rares or Exotics in the Greatsword, and farming on a secondary character?

supppposedly exotics have a higher chance, but how much? who knows. i want to say rares would be more cost-effective. and you can do higher volumes of tries at the mystic forge. what iw ould do though is if you happen to loot exotic greatswords, or you get them from yuor rare GS forges, keep ’em until you have enough.

though then, i would perhaps even check their prices on the TP. if you believe it to be more beneficial to sell them, do so.

maybe someone else who has more experience can offer some advice.

in regards to second character.. iw ant to say all the gifts you create from the mystic forge are account bound. iirc, the only things soulbound are the bloodstone shard or philosopher’s stones/crystals sicne they are acquired via skillpoints, which are character bound. so you can plan carefully and use your alts to help as well.. but just make sure you know which characters will be in charge of which aspects.

akamon.2769:

supppposedly exotics have a higher chance, but how much? who knows. i want to say rares would be more cost-effective. and you can do higher volumes of tries at the mystic forge. what iw ould do though is if you happen to loot exotic greatswords, or you get them from yuor rare GS forges, keep ’em until you have enough.

though then, i would perhaps even check their prices on the TP. if you believe it to be more beneficial to sell them, do so.

maybe someone else who has more experience can offer some advice.

Rares have a 20% chance of upgrading to an Exotic when thrown in the Mystic Forge. Because of that, for every 16 Rares you get (not toss in, but get) you’re theoretically getting one Exotic.

Math:
4 Rares = 20% chance at 1 Exotic
4 Rares = 20% * 1 Exotic
4 Rares / 20% Chance = 1 Exotic
4r / 0.2c = 1e
20 Rares = 1 Exotic.
BUT, for every failure, you get 1 Rare back, so… in every 4 tries, you get a 5th one free, and it theoretically takes 5 tries to get one Exotic, so it only takes 16 Rares.

Back to the explanation…

Exotics do not have a higher chance of yielding a Precursor, nor do Rares. Every time you get an Exotic in the Mystic Forge, it gives you one of ANY Exotic within the level parameters. This is why you have a higher chance of getting a Precursor using only level 80 items (you’re not getting a chance of getting level 79- Exotics which CAN’T be Precursors).

So what this means is that every 4 Exotics you throw in, you can get ANY Exotic back (within the level parameters again) and every 4 Rares you throw in, you can get ANY Rare item OR (with a 20% chance) ANY Exotic item (again both of these are within the level parameters).

The word ANY is being overused in these examples, you won’t get certain, specific, drop-only items, such as Final Rest, and even craft-only items, such as Infinite Light. Additionally, there are other items that will not be given such as Cavalier stats on armor or weapons (although they do exist in drops from Fractal Chests).

Any questions?

So, use rares if they cost 1/16th of an exotic? Which is rarely the case?

I’m not much good at maths, so if that’s not what you were suggesting, concluding, oops.

Since it takes (theoretically) 16 rares to get 1 exotic from the forge or 4 exotics to get 1 exotic the rares would have to be 1/4 the price of an exotic for it to be cost effective (which is probably more or less what they cost unless the exotic is a rare skin).

However, you have to take into account RNG. Sometimes you might have a stream of only getting exotics out of rares and sometimes you might throw 50 rares in and get no exotics. This averages out over large numbers but could work either for or against you in the short term.

My conclusion: I don’t think there’s much difference in the overall chance of getting a precursor from when you do it with rares or exotics. With rares you have more tries but a lower chance, exotic fewer tries with a greater chance. Whichever one of these appeals to you most, go for it. If you decide to try with rares and happen to loot exotics, throw them in anyway.

My tip: go for the precursor last. Since you’ll need to farm for a vast number of the components for the legendary (whether it’s farming for gold or the materials themselves) you’ll be spending a lot of time getting loot drops, chests etc. I would go for precursor last because there is a chance that you could get the precursor (or another one) as a drop during your farming. While it’s a small chance, where precursors are concerned I would take whatever chance you can.

Thanks for the clarification. Cheers, all.

I’m starting to save and work for one as well. I was curious, would it make more sense to try to farm the T6 materials, or would it make more sense to do the whole “CoF p1” farming that everyone talks about and just buy them?

I’m not much of a dungeon runner, though see I’ll need to do Arah about 8-9 times to get 500 of something I’d need, but am willing to suck it up if it makes more sense to go that way?

Or is it best just to farm, and try to pick away at maybe getting 5-10 a day of each one? I made Gift of Mastery, and was starting to work on clovers. I have 8 out of 20, so seem to be about on pace, and am realizing even out of that I’ll get quite a few T6 mats on ‘misses’.

Was wondering if there was any sort of consensus on buy vs grind, and for which things?

notebene.3190:

I’m starting to save and work for one as well. I was curious, would it make more sense to try to farm the T6 materials, or would it make more sense to do the whole “CoF p1” farming that everyone talks about and just buy them?

I’m not much of a dungeon runner, though see I’ll need to do Arah about 8-9 times to get 500 of something I’d need, but am willing to suck it up if it makes more sense to go that way?

Or is it best just to farm, and try to pick away at maybe getting 5-10 a day of each one? I made Gift of Mastery, and was starting to work on clovers. I have 8 out of 20, so seem to be about on pace, and am realizing even out of that I’ll get quite a few T6 mats on ‘misses’.

Was wondering if there was any sort of consensus on buy vs grind, and for which things?

Buying is always the better option when you’re ready to make a precursor. The way GW2 is set up, it just doesn’t make sense to farm. It’s much easier to get gold than it is to get whatever specific material you need. IF, however, farming will get you toward another goal – say farming Skelks in the far shiverpeaks for T6 blood to get your underwater kills daily, or running around in Orr for daily events or gatherer – that can be worth your time. As you’ve said, fails on getting Mystic Clovers will often result in you getting T6 materials, so I’d keep working on the Mystic Clovers before working on any other precursor.

Are you working on BiFrost or something that requires Arah tokens? If not, Arah’s not a good use of your time. The exotics from dungeons into the Mystic Toilet is a good strategy to get your precursor weapon, but only if the dungeon you choose is relatively short.

Otherwise, certainly sounds like you’re on the right track.

Thanks. Yes, I wanted to try to make BiFrost. That was really the only reason I needed those particular tokens.

I guess I need to see if I can start getting into some CoF P1 groups that don’t mind helping out a newbie. Other than doing 7 ‘chest’ events every day (or at least trying to get them all in) besides my daily, and selling mats I don’t need as precursors (or any full on in collections anyways, which is getting pretty close to all of them at this point), and selling the yellow weapons but salvaging yellow armor for ectos (the weapons always seem to sell for just a bit more), I don’t really have a good money earning strategy. I was kinda hoping to avoid doing dungeon runs, as it’s not something I’ve ever been a fan of in any game, but it seems like it just won’t be in reach unless I start doing that.

With Dawn being upwards of 550 gold, would you buy or try (forging)?

Antisceptic.9174:

With Dawn being upwards of 550 gold, would you buy or try (forging)?

I think the current advice is to cover both bases. Run dungeons to gain gold and tokens, turn in the dungeon tokens for exotic Greatswords, and dump those into the Mystic Toilet when you have 4. If you get a pearl greatsword, use it for fodder in your next batch. If you get another exotic, evaluate whether it’s worth selling.

Sounds like a lot of people got their precursors using this method long before they got the money to buy on the trading post (which is good!), but if you’re really unlucky, at least you’ll be building up money along the way.

I recommend you complete it in this order:
Gift of Battle / Bloodstone Shard / Gift of Exploration / 1M karma
Mystic Clover
Gift of Mastery
Precursor / 100 Icy Runestone
Gift of precursor
Gift of Magic / Gift of Might / Gift of Fortune
Legendary

the idea is to collect collectable (such as lodestones or crafting materials) stuff while getting all the non-buyables (such as karma and badges of honor). If you go buy everything first, then wait, you’ll end up paying more for it than if you waited.