Guild Wars 2

Magic find only affects direct drops, not bags. From 10-15 champ bags I wouldn’t expect to get so many t6 items, maybe only a couple.

The times I would expect to pick up t6 items from what you are doing are during the temple events in Orr. In particular defend the second beacon for Melandru, and the bit just after the risen priest of Grenth is killed. Use aoe to get as many tags as you can and you will hopefully get a lot of Heavy Mouldy Bags, which drop t6 at a high rate.

If you are trying to farm a specific type of t6 item it can be worth doing with a magic find of 200 (using whatever boosts you need to get that high). Otherwise, go for bags in Orr.

Reflect doesn’t work on the projectile. Other than that I agree with the OP, however I only melee him with groups I trust.

And of course now that they’ve announced a change there’s a whole lot of people complaining that this change is a terrible idea.

Well, LS may not be working very well for some, but it is for me. Personally I am glad that they are committed to this path.

Also, a lot of people poo-pooed the writers for looking at Game of Thrones for inspiration, but somehow they managed to create a character as unlikeable as Joffrey.

Wethospu.6437:

All things have right to grow.

He’s an Asura, he doesn’t grow any higher than he already is. Time to knock him down.

In all seriousness, while I recognise that 90% of the player base used their attack skills on Phlunt during the latest update in a vain attempt to try and smack him down, I hope the writers don’t do anything as crude as killing him off. I’m hoping for some other form of comeuppance though, such as a new career as Taimi’s lab assistant. With threats of retaliation if he is not sufficiently obsequious. Now go make me a coffee Phlunt, I have some serious lab work to do.

I agree that this is bad for dungeon sellers, but for everyone else this is going to solve more problems than it creates. Let’s face it, when pugging which happens more, the guildies who opened kick you at the last boss or at some point the instance owner dc’s.

This might be different at high level fractals, but for most dungeons the owner dc’ing is the main problem.

pdavis.8031:

Oh i totally get the odds are not in my favor, but in my farming for T6 I gather T5s. And elder wood, and mithril is super easy to get by salvaging greens and blues. Im not actually spending any money on things ive crafted to drop in the forge. Buying the items to do that would be counter productive. But from what I understand you are saying is that it would be better to sell the mats, instead of crafting them, to make a bit of extra money to just buy it.

I can’t tell you what exactly to do because if you are working towards a goal you have to do it in a way that you enjoy.

If you want safe and quick, sell off your materials, or craft things that are profitable (gw2spidy might help, it’s worth looking at things like staves and swords). Note that by quick I still mean a lot of grind.

If you want to play the numbers, but still be risky craft swords or staves and throw them in the forge.

If you are going to craft axes you should go in with your eyes open. You will probably have saved up enough money for the precursor (provided you are frugal) before you get the drop from the MF if you just use what you collect. So what’s the benefit? You get something to break up the gameplay rather than alternating between Orr, your favourite dungeons and world bosses. You also get the occasional axe skin, which you may enjoy.

If you are happy adding a couple of weeks to the time it takes to get a precursor for the joy of the occasional flutter, go for it. It is not the most efficient way of doing it but it is better to get your legendary later and keep playing than it is to burn yourself out getting it and quit 2 weeks later.

Currently if you sold off all the components for a Battleaxe, losing 15% from TP fees, you would make about 55 silver, so that is something to consider if you decided to go the Mystic forge route. My source is http://www.gw2spidy.com/recipe/5918

However, I would still advise against the Mystic Forge simply because you are only after one item and the chance of having to make a large number of forgings before you get a drop are unacceptably high. As a rule of thumb, if you get a precursor every n tries on average, the chances of you not getting a precursor after n tries is 1 in 3. So if on average it take 1000 gold to forge a precursor there is still a greater than 10% chance that you will have nothing after having thrown in 2000 gold.

Forging makes sense if you are doing it on an industrial scale, or if you just really like gambling.

Purple Miku.7032:

@Cormac

What makes HotW P3 more deserving of a reward increase over P2? The last boss in P2 has a one-shot attack whereas the one in P3 does not, and they’re both underwater combat. There’s just about nothing in P3 worthy of mentioning as a decent boss besides Legendary Svanigandir, which is pretty much faceroll in a group but super fun to solo.

Also, what’s with the CoE P2? The unique bosses in each of the paths are Bjarl the Rampager, Evolved Husk, Evolved Destroyer. I don’t know about you but I don’t recall either of these 3 encounters remotely challenging even way back on my first time completing these paths. The evolved husk in particular is easier to solo than in a group, so the rest of the party can pretty much AFK outside and wait for it to be done.

I will concede the point on CoE path 2, but I have certainly seen far more parties wipe on the boss on HotW 3 than HotW 2. HotW 2 is a simple matter of ranging and then if you make a mistake swimming off to the side to rez in peace which is not possible in path 3 because of the jellies.

I’d like to know if the latest trend of time gated material that can still be bought off the trading post (mawdrey components, ascended armour components) is a deliberate attempt to allow people to make money crafting by preventing a small number of users flooding the niche as soon as it becomes apparent.

PS thanks John for taking the time to respond to all the questions here, and thanks Wanze for creating the topic. This is my favourite forum thread that hasn’t been deleted.

I would be interested to know if there are any decent examples of MMOs with open world dungeons. ESO had them, but they were awful.

I don’t know if this is a stupid idea or not, but each day a different path could have a special daily bonus event.

For instance one day SE path 1 could have it. There would be a daily achievement “Destroy the Mordremoth tendril with Ferg”. In the dungeon, after you’ve destroyed the golems, suddenly BOOM, up comes a tendril for you and the party to destroy. Defeat it and get your daily reward. Make it a rare like the world bosses and you’ll get lots of people wanting to do it.

The best part is that it’s part of LS, so there’s a chance of them dedicating resources to it.

I would like to see at least one path for each dungeon considered “the kittene” and give higher rewards. A base of 1.5g for the “harder” dungeon, while moving the others back down to 1g

AC: not sure, maybe make p2 1.5g and the rest 1g
CM: path 2, 1.5g
TA: Aetherpath 3G
SE: path2, 1.5g
CoF: path 3, 1.5g
HotW: path 3, 1.8g
CoE: path 2, 1.5g
Arah: don’t know well enough, but something like current rewards.

In reply to the OP, you can also often make a profit on things that are time gated. This is because the people who pay attention to the market will try and exploit it for maximum profit as soon as they see the niche. Time gating prevents that. Several items related to the new back piece have been quite profitable, especially if you had a backlog of charged quartz crystals.

Keep an eye out for updates which require crafting, even if you don’t want to craft it yourself because there is a chance that you will be able to make money out of crafting the components and selling them to the people who want the product right away.

I always assumed that it was because they changed their minds between releasing ascended weapons and ascended armour and never got around to changing it retroactively.

At least ANet’s new MO seems to be time gating but making the product sellable, which is great if you are patient and on the ball enough to get in while piquant plant food and glow boxes are still profitable to craft.

Oh, and you might want to watch out for the plant life too now.

On the traits system:

If you find levelling to be a grind and you just want to get to endgame then the new trait system adds to the grind.

If you enjoy the idea of levelling your character, and gradually accumulating more skills by doing tasks then the new system is great.

I fall into the latter group of players.

Fractals are a pretty frustrating aspect of the game for me. There is an absurdly high percentage of runs with rage quitters, which meant that I ended up just assuming fractals were cursed for me. I haven’t played them since Fractured and am dreading returning, but I really want the bloodstone sink.

Lil Puppy.5216:

So Evon steals a family sword from a dead person and replicates it ‘in her honor’ I suppose? Sick Charr. I was hoping for more of a specific boss drop, but cash ya know…

It’s terrible that Evon is profiteering this way. I’ll take two.

Kenage Achalarus.4276:

so i ask this would king author be consederd king if he bought excalaber from the bazaar?

Sheesh, been playing the latest game “Britannia Wars 2” from MaloryNet and their weapon acquisition method suck. Seriously, you hear all about this great weapon you get and you’re thinking “Wow I can’t wait to see what sort of boss is guarding it! It must be like a dragon, or maybe a horde of Frenchmen or something!” So you get to the part where you are supposed to get this “Excalibur” and do you know what’s guarding it? A kittening rock! Seriously, not even a slightly irritated pigeon to ward off, you just go over and pick it up.

I though there would have to be more to it, but once it became clear to me that there was nothing else involved I got so annoyed that I threw the thing into the lake. Next time I log in guess what? There, in the middle of the lake is a hand holding up the sword THAT I JUST GOT RID OF to give it back to me! I want to feel like I earned the thing, not like no matter what I do I can’t get rid of it!

Lame weapon, shoddy script, terrible clichéd grail quest that feels like it’s going nowhere and Mordred is so badly written it kills me.

The only insignias that can be salvaged are the insignias that can not be crafted. Zealot’s insignias can be crafted, so you can’t get them by salvaging.

Thanks Ensign for the follow up. I wasn’t trying to be difficult I promise, and I appreciate that you took the time to tell me what you did.

Zaxares.5419:

I didn’t really mind them tying old open world content into the Living Story, but having bugged/broken events that prevented progress was inexcusable, I agree. Mistakes happen, but each one is a case where things could have been done better, and should be avoided if at all possible in the future.

I am in two minds about the failings here. On one hand some of the problems cropped up on dynamic events that had been running smoothly for almost two years. On the other hand the Hydra Queen showed that bugs can unexpectedly crop up when unusually large numbers show up.

They made a point of apologising on “Points of Interest”, which, while arguably necessary, was good to see.

I think that episode 3’s use of open world is better in theory than in practice. If ANet had asked me before what I thought of the idea I would have said “that’s brilliant”, but now I’m a bit meh.

Personally, I’m hoping that they try for another Marionette style event, but have no idea how they’ll implement it.

I really hope that those who craft the backpiece get a surprise boss fight in one instance during Living Story. It would even be worth listening to the whining in the forum from those who crafted the backpiece and didn’t want to fight and from those who didn’t craft the backpiece but did want to fight.

ShadyNZL.9018:

Cormac.3871:

ShadyNZL.9018:

Morsus.5106:

You get a lot of T6 mats when making mystic clovers. Do the 10 recipe. It’ll take you longer to get all your clovers, but you’ll get lots of mats along the way.

I tried this last night when I don’t need clovers at all….crafted 10x and got 100 Mystic clovers and NO T6 mats…. how unlucky I was…

Very unlucky. Assuming a 1 in 3 chance of getting a clover, the likelihood of getting 10 in a row is 1 in 59049.

I didn’t explain that clearly. Not 10 from 10 – I did it in lots of x10 and got obby shards, globs, Ori Ingots and crystals as by products but no T6 mats at all.

Ah, I understand. Sorry

That’s still extremely unlucky though. Depending on how many other things you got it is still probably below 1%.

Your point is true though, in order to even out your luck you should go for the 1 recipe, not the 10.

Ensign.2189:

Cormac.3871:

Wow! Ok, i didn’t expect that since it would have to be a huge data set to be confident that the difference was less than, say, 20% (you’d need something like 50 precursors forged from each group). I don’t suppose you have a link?

You don’t need anywhere near that many. Drop rates are not independent of each other, and are not continuous random variables but discrete random variables constrained to values constructed from small integers in predictable ways. The evidence tends to stack up pretty quickly on one bucket, at which point you can stop thinking about it.

I had assumed that you just did a bunch of tests with level 75’s and compared it with your results for 80’s based on your earlier statements, but here you imply that you did other tests. Given your vagueness I suppose I will just either have to take your word for it or remain unconvinced.

Ensign.2189:

Cormac.3871:

So, do you have data showing that throwing in 78’s is the same as throwing in 80’s?

Yes.

(75s vs 80s actually, but that’s good enough for me).

Wow! Ok, i didn’t expect that since it would have to be a huge data set to be confident that the difference was less than, say, 20% (you’d need something like 50 precursors forged from each group). I don’t suppose you have a link?

ShadyNZL.9018:

Morsus.5106:

You get a lot of T6 mats when making mystic clovers. Do the 10 recipe. It’ll take you longer to get all your clovers, but you’ll get lots of mats along the way.

I tried this last night when I don’t need clovers at all….crafted 10x and got 100 Mystic clovers and NO T6 mats…. how unlucky I was…

Very unlucky. Assuming a 1 in 3 chance of getting a clover, the likelihood of getting 10 in a row is 1 in 59049.

Ensign.2189:

I stand by everything I said before, as that’s how the forge actually works.

So, do you have data showing that throwing in 78’s is the same as throwing in 80’s? Because if if you don’t have that data then you don’t know that “that’s how the forge actually works”. Unless you’ve seen the algorithm they used, rather than inferred it from incomplete data.

Do you have Rabid, soldiers and magi items discovered? These should be clear as IIRC they only came in with ascended crafting.

400-420 refine gossamer and leather.
420-450 craft exotics and make 20 slot packs for yourself.
450-470 figure out how much ascended material you will need for your end goal and slowly make them all
470-500 craft exotics

Crafting exotics still gets you experience even if you have discovered them already, but it will take you twice as long.

EDIT: I forgot to mention Sentinel and Nomad armour. Sentinel insignias are expensive, but you should be able to sell your product for only a minimal loss (or slight profit if you are lucky)

Ensign.2189:

The game takes the average level of the items you throw into the forge, adds 5-11 (5-12?), and then rolls on the appropriate table. So if you throw rares with an average level of 74 into the forge you’ll usually get level 80 rares back but occasionally get 78/79 rares (and exotics, pre-change), but if the average level is 75 or higher you always get level 80 rares and are always rolling on the top table for exotics.
.

This might be the sensible way to write the code, but based on dev comments I don’t think it is how it is actually done. I’ll have to go and chase down quotes, but I’m pretty sure that they have stated specifically that level 80 input gives the outright highest chance. Remember also that there was a time when a bug meant that throwing lower level exotics was more likely to result in a precursor, so I doubt the system works exactly the way you have assumed.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/Sell-Salvage-or-Forge/first#post4295041

This has a few other people’s thoughts too

AngelDiscarnate.5489:

Never thought I’d see the day when 100 jute scraps sold for 1 gold… xD

Or, you could wait until you have 250, upgrade it to wool, and most times make more than you would for selling the jute.

A couple of points on the Mystic Forge changes. I agree with Essence Snow that it is a nerf to the precursor drop rate for those who reforge the output. Any guess on the effect is going to use data that we aren’t privy to, but it could be as much as 10% for people who work with exotics and reforge all their non-precursor output.

As for the changes, John Smith indicated that the changes to the Mystic Forge are not yet in their final form, so there is hope for a fix at some stage.

Rainshine.5493:

Thing is, I don’t want a legendary just to have a legendary … I want something I like the looks of. Now if you like those, awesome! I use weapons that are less desired because I like the way they look (again, pearl staff example, I think it’s lovely). But there is absolutely no way I’m putting in the money and effort for the Gift of Might/Magic etc. for something I don’t like — and those legendaries you named I don’t care for personally.

I think part of the point of the original post is that the problem is not with the price of precursors in general, but with a few specific precursors. People complaining should be saying not “precursors are too expensive!”, but “the precursor I want is too expensive.” Which they never do.

Just to the original point of the post, I have bought five precursors and the most I have paid was 180 gold for The Energizer about a year ago. I bought the two underwater weapons for guardian, the focus and torch all for 120 or less. The Bard has since jumped in price but you can put in a buy order for less than 200.

The one thing you need to know about the market right now is that if a precursor is expensive (like the staff “The Legend”) the rare of the same type will be expensive.

Yellows: Sell greatswords, daggers, sword and staves (or forge four of a kind if I am going for a precursor). Salvage everything else with mystic salvage kit.

Greens: salvage all light armour for silk. Try and match up greatswords, daggers, sword and staves for the forge. Sell heavy and medium bodies. Put all other greens into the forge either four weapons at a time or three armour one weapon.

Blues: Salvage for luck.

Whites: salvage all except medium armour, which I sell (leather is cheap)

Half serious suggestion: commander tags should cost 200 gold, some badges and one stack of those champ bags you get from killing tower lords.

I would concentrate on the legendary but have the ascended armour ticking over in the background. There are not a lot of materials required for ascended armour that are also required for legendaries. The only thing that will really impede your progress is the cost of getting that profession up to 500.

My advice is to get good at the lower level dungeons, particularly Caudecus’ Manor, Twilight Arbor and Sorrow’s Embrace. If you run these regularly not only will you be getting gold towards your legendary, you will also be collecting t2-4 cloth and leather. And there’s another advantage here too. Soldier, rabid, shaman and magi insignia can be salvaged from armour with those stats bought from token vendors, making levelling up crafting relatively cheap.

Sure, it would be slightly faster if you concentrated on only one, but not a lot, and if you intend to do both anyway this is the most efficient way.

More like “it’s this or get squished like a bug”. There’s less motivation for the non-Sylvari, but there’s still plenty of motivation.

I have to admit dungeons are becoming less of a reason to stay, I am just getting too grumpy with PuGs. I had a TA run with four people from a random guild where the leader kept telling me what to do. When he told me to keep my staff on all the time for the vines and I saw that this was because most of the party was ranging I told him"Sorry, could you stfu?" As the loading screen appeared and I found myself back in Caledon forest it occurred to me that I would never have been so short tempered a year ago. Bad play in dungeons I know well used to create interesting challenges, now it annoys me more often than not.

Oh well, at least I am enjoying Living Story.

The destroyer lodestones will be for Primordus weapons: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Primordus_weapons

If I were you I would assume that if an item doesn’t appear on your discovery panel it can’t be used for anything discoverable. The chances of there being a bug are quite low.

Assuming that you are trying to get to 500 efficiently you are probably going about it the wrong way. It is more economical to get there by discovering exotic weapons than lower level runes. If on the other hand you want to make sure you have discovered everything for some irrational reason though, that’s cool, I can totally relate to that.

Here is what I would do from your position:

Look up the first ascended weapon you want to craft, and figure out how many of each ascended material you need (deldrimor steel, spiritwood, bloodstone bricks etc.). Craft these materials while you still get some experience for them.

Once you have enough for your ascended weapon buy some exotic inscription recipe sheets from the crafting vendor and level up to at least 499.

If you get to 499 it may be worth making lower level discoveries such as inscriptions, or level 400 rare items (rare swords, greatswords and daggers should actually be profitable to craft).

Hopefully that’s not a page full of stuff you already know.

zenleto.6179:

Cormac.3871:

zenleto.6179:

Cormac.3871:

Whatever the case is, they have hurt the reputation of the gem store, which is a shame.

How? Its already got a bad reputation. People blame cloudy days on the gem shop!

As for the product: it will suit some players and not suit others.

Given that you would be better off buying the materials individually I am curious as to whom you think it would suit.

I know there will always be people who complain on the forums about the gem store, but when even Dulfy starts complaining you know something’s wrong.

How the hell do I know who it will suit? Considering how many people play this game, though, it would be stupid to say that there will be nobody who gets something out of this.

And I don’t care what Dulfy thinks, I’ve never met her.

I seem to be annoying a lot of people recently, so I’m sorry that I added you to that list by being a little more blunt than necessary. However, you asserted that some people would find this package useful, so I assumed that you must have had a reason for this belief other than “someone might for a reason I can’t fathom”. If I offered something at $5 each or three for $20, I would hazard a guess that nobody in the player base would find the three for $20 offer useful, as big as that player base might be. It would get sales no doubt, but mainly because people don’t pay attention.

Major and superior sigil of the night both require recipe sheets.

Fun stats rule of thumb: throw an x sided dice x times, and the chance that number 1 will not show up on any throw is between 30% and 35%. If you spent over 1000 gold trying to gamble for a 1300 gold item then your chances of coming up with nothing were about 1 in 3.

But as Wanze said, there are other threads here discussing the same thing for the same reasons. Go to the thread “an interesting idea for precursors” where the conversation has gone forward further. Or indeed any of the others.

I kind of like where this idea is going, even if I think it is wrong. One of the cool things about the concept is that it fits with Scarlet’s vision of red vines entangling the pale tree.

But do you know what would be a great dare? If making the vine backpiece had some effect on the player’s story. You enter an instance and when you go near one of Scarlet’s devices and all of a sudden the backpiece goes nuts. It could be the same instance in all other respects except the back piece means you have to do a tough boss fight,

If the gold reward was removed from dungeons the lfg tool would die. This is why I am confident it will stay.

zenleto.6179:

Cormac.3871:

Whatever the case is, they have hurt the reputation of the gem store, which is a shame.

How? Its already got a bad reputation. People blame cloudy days on the gem shop!

As for the product: it will suit some players and not suit others.

Given that you would be better off buying the materials individually I am curious as to whom you think it would suit.

I know there will always be people who complain on the forums about the gem store, but when even Dulfy starts complaining you know something’s wrong.

At a crafting station, go to your wardrobe and look up the following weapon types: Bandit, dredge, ogre, beaded, godskull and steam. If you think any of those weapons would look good on your character craft it.

T2-4 materials are necessary for Ascended, so if you think you are likely to go down that path then keep them.

Fine crafting materials may be of more value if upgraded, but I would have to look them up. You should look them up before selling.