Guild Wars 2

pro tip!
the graph, do you see that legend just above it? (“Buy Listings volume 1 Day Mv Avg”, “Buy Listings Volume 1 Day Mv Avg”, “Sell Listings Raw Data”, etc.)
those are click-able to toggle on and off. when I look at a spidy graph, the first thing I do is turn off all of the Mv Avg’s and turn on the sell listing volume. instead of less-useful averages, you get actual volumes for that time. It makes the graph far more usable. the sell listing volume is still averaged a bit, but you can work with that. I think it happens when spidy condenses the 15-minute samples to 30-minute, then to 1-hour, etc.
After doing this, we can clearly see when the supply has dropped and price has increased, which majority of the time means someone bought someone else’s sell listing.
I count 10 sales in the last week, 2 for about 640g, 8 for about 650g http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/31077
you could easily undercut the lowest by a little bit (maybe 1c-10g) and expect it to sell.

one option is to sell for 600g. almost 0 chance of being undercut, and you’ll sell faster than at 650g. personally, I would check gw2spidy and see what prices that item has sold at recently, then list 1c below that price

It’s more of: if you want something so bad, you talk about it as if it’s real to make it more likely it will happen.
1) character A was made more than 2 years ago. It’s a bit ironic that it’s my oldest character, and I want to delete her so bad. The story: I bought the game, made an ele, loved it, roommate tried it by making a new character (A), then I deleted ele in favor of ranger, I didn’t delete A in case roommate wanted to try again, but I then started using her as a bank, then I needed a char to learn tailor to make ascended armor for my Mesmer, figured I’d do it on A since she ‘s not doing anything else while waiting. This was back when my ranger and Mesmer already had their professions.
Character B, I made a guardian to try out, thought I should just give her armorsmith and weaponsmith to have all them, ended up not really liking the play style, but already had a lot of recipes on her.
2&3) Both are level 80, crafting 500, full exotics, map completion, lots of recipes. I would not be understating it to say I’ve spent >2000g on both their professions. Ascended items, every ascended inscription/insignia, potent potions, some crown pavilion recipes, …
I’m in a situation where I don’t really care about traits. If I want one I’m missing on a new char, I would just go buy it, I can afford that. It honestly wasn’t much of a gamble. If they add this suggestion, great, I won’t possibly have to wait for craft expander to go on sale. If they don’t, I can easily remake the gold. I’m not a fan of new chars, so not many new ones. I am a fan of consolidating all the crafts onto my 2 main chars, that would be wonderful. Which is why I am completely ok with having to pay to re-max some crafts on a main char if I would be able to not need these alts. But the soulbound recipes that I can’t get anymore… you can’t just go buy them.
Like I said; I’m not a usual example.

Btw: ‘delete’ is the wrong word for me to use. I just want to not have to go to character screen to use a different profession. If this suggestion happens, I’ll still keep them around until I do want to make an alt, they would just not be used.

John Smith.4610:

I agree with you. The LFG tool is not a grey market tool.

I don’t read that as, “you will be banned for using LFG to sell stuff”, I read that as, “I think people who use LFG to sell stuff should be banned.”
I’m probably missing some implied officiality because he has a red tag, but I always felt JS was less strict about formality than most (joking about suggestions and updates, sarcasm, etc)

I agree character slot expansion sales will decrease a little, but not by as much as crafts expander sales will increase.
Personally, I don’t expect I’ll buy another character slot any time soon (maybe at least a year?), but if this were added, the next 2 times I would buy a slot, I wouldn’t need to.
On the other hand, the people who buy the majority of character slots are altoholics, who likely don’t care about designating specific characters to certain crafts like I do.
I’m probably not a good example anyways :P I already bought both crafts expander just because of how much I want this update. That is how much I am betting on it. I can’t make use of the expanders until this update happens because I’m tethered by a few recipes that take months to get (ie laurels) and other recipes I can no longer get (ie crown pavilion). But I want to consolidate the crafting professions so much that I don’t want to risk these expanders not being on sale when this update does happen.

Can anyone explain to me why selling dungeon paths on LFG is specifically allowed but selling items on LFG is specifically agreed it should be against the rules? If one is allowed, that’s a strong argument to allow the other. “I’m looking for a group of people who are interested in buying a twilight for 3000g”
(Btw: He didn’t actually say it’s against the rules, just that JS agrees it should be)

The tp won’t let you sell for less than you could get from a merchant, even after fees. If the merchant value is 1s, you can’t list the item for under 1s16c
I agree the randomness of the list of items you have for sale is annoying. But since I will 99% of the time list either 1 thing or all the things, the randomness doesn’t really come into play

I found a Tally Reckoner.
In case you don’t know how it works/what it is, let me explain:
you double-click, select stat type, and it gives you a level 3, 8, 13, or 18 focus that has stats that are 3 levels above that level. you have the choice of a few different stat types (healing, malign, mighty, resilient)
the item you get is account-bound
all of the options I saw were level 18. but this is a level 80 character. I’m guessing it gives an item that is closest to level-appropriate for you.

anyways, onto the bug:
I salvaged the focus. it let me salvage it without confirming. I got no materials from it.
I don’t see why you would want to give 0 mats from it; I’m sure it replaced a green or yellow level 80 item I would of got. But if you do intend for it to give 0 mats, please make it unsalvageable instead.

99% chance this is a phishing scam
Or was it from ‘gus@guildwars2.com’?

Agreed!
It’s the only use of it. They have no experience to compare it to. You say learning traits and elites is too confusing for a level 30? Psshhh. Knowing what ‘unique’ means in this context is the confusing thing

I could not agree with this more.
If this were implemented I might get fired for leaving work so quickly that people would think there was a bomb threat or something, because I would go home to get my crafts squared away.
Currently sitting on 2 chars I don’t want, but am forced to keep around because they know things. Secret things. Things I need to know and can’t get anywhere else . They are blackmailing me: “don’t kill us or you’ll never see this knowledge again”

they should have a thing, where every time the temple is successfully defended, the attacking enemies get harder. not drop more loot: just get harder. it would be an internal multiplier. so 1st attack: normal. 2nd attack: 120% of normal health and damage. 3rd attack: 150% of normal health and damage. 4th attack: 190% of normal health and damage. eventually, the defense would fail and it would reset to normal health and damage.
this makes strategic sense as well. Why would zhaitan keep sending the same 30 risen to take a temple when it keeps failing? If he wants the temple, he’s going to send more risen, or stronger risen. or he’d abandon the temple. sending the same force repeatedly is senseless.

there are no private trades.
you can give someone something.
and you can hope they give you something back.
but there are no private trades.
support won’t do anything if the person doesn’t give you something back.

I’m actually pretty glad there aren’t, because it wasn’t until I got to use a good trading post that I realized how much I hated spamming all the trading chat channels in D2 with things like “GF for 40 SOJ” hundreds of times before it actually sold. You know… now that I think about it, I never got ripped off. The potential was there for sure (some trades went like this: I prove I have xyz, you send me 40 SOJ, then we trade 40 SOJ for my xyz, then you send me 40 more SOJ), yet I was never scammed (40 was the most you could send, and some things were just worth more than that). wow. people were more honest back then or something.

carey.3169:

would of been better spent converting the gems to gold then buying the skins

I think there is not a single person who would disagree with this sentiment. keys are not priced for the one thing you want. they are priced for everything they give. Like: how much would it of cost you to buy all the boosters you just got from the gem store? revive orbs and repair canisters? etc.

77 karma vs. 88c for basic kit, which is 11s42c/1000 karma
252 karma vs. 2s88c for fine kit, which is 11s42c/1000 karma
wow, I dont know why but I honestly did not expect those to be exactly the same. anyways, that’s not a half-bad use of karma. not the best, but not the worst.
lost orrian boxes are about 4s/1000 karma (fast)
beaded weapons are about 40s/1000 karma (slow)
legendaries are about 15-30s/1000 karma (technically this is higher, but there are other account-bound mats, so I divided by 3.)
so; yeah. a decent use of karma.

Kuldebar.1897:

I’d love to see a “view only usable item” option in merchant windows.

and make it enabled by default, but an easy click of a check box to disable it right on the merchant’s screen!
also: yeah, soulbound-on-acquire is never a good thing.

thanks for the reply Gaile!
regarding programming the cap: as far as I know, nothing had caps when these items were first introduced (at the start of the game? they’ve been there as long as I’ve used the TP). But since then, there have been gem store items that do have limits on how many you can buy. sometimes a limit of 1, sometimes more:
crafting license (3), home instance node packs (1 each), collection expander (5), free items (1 each).
It seems the code is there, just that bank and bag expansions were added before that code was used, so they weren’t updated to the new capabilities of the gem store. I hope it’s an easy update to include them, but maybe not. I look forward to seeing this updated

Toylatrine.5862:

I never pay attention to the temple timers cause they never seem to work haha…. and what kind of items would you save for black lion salvage kits? I am sitting on a few of them and have been scare to waste them.

Sentinel’s Rogue Pants of Hoelbrak is a good example. Sentinel’s insignia sells for 9g20s, superior rune of hoelbrak sells for 9g50s
also Dire Sneakthief Leggings of the Traveler. Dire insignia sells for 2g70s, superior rune of the traveler sells for 8g50s
there are not many items where it’s better to use blsk. there used to be more, but gem price went up and inscription/insignia price went down.
like I said: if you have a lot, use them for things that are still expensive, but maybe not as expensive as I recommended.

Narkodx.1472:

One thing no one mentioned is LUCK and Precursor Mystic Forge Rolling

For example I save all my rare daggers/swords/greatswords to roll in the mystic forge for a chance at precursor

Before I maxed out magic find I would salvage everything for luck but that obviously takes a long time

But obviously neither of these options is taking into consideration strictly the max profit so yeah depends where you are gold-wise the above options for luck and precursors is probably better when you have nothing to spend money on

This is certainly an option. I wouldn’t always recommend it, and only do it with select item types. Some numbers to help you decide if you want to go this route:

• average level of the items you throw in the forge should be 75 or higher to maximize your chance of getting a level 80 out as only a level 80 has a chance at getting a precursor.
  (examples: 75+75+75+75, or 65+80+80+80, or 70+70+80+80, or 80+80+80+80, or etc.)
• 1 in 128 attempts with level 75+ exotics produces a precursor
• 1 in 782 attempts with level 75+ rares produces a precursor

From that, we get this example:
Spark sells for 1476g
1476g / 782 attempts / 4 rares/attempt = 47s18c/rare
So the rare daggers you throw into the forge have a value of 47s18c each. If you can sell the dagger to the TP for more than that, it would be better to sell it. If you can salvage for more than that (see formula above), it would be better salvaged.
If you want to look into this, I recommend reading some of the posts by Nugkill on reddit.

Astral Projections.7320:

How about greens and blues?

I salvage some greens (all light armor, heavy chest pieces and greatswords) but it seems it’s more cost effective to sell all the blues and most of the greens. I tried salvaging all greens and while I got some luck out of it, the mats I got didn’t cover the cost of the items salvaged.

(My luck is about 140-141)

The summary for whites, blues, and greens (based purely on chance of recovering the socket):
If socket < 9c: Crude
If socket > 9c: Basic / CFSoM
If socket > 41c: Fine
If socket > 1s2c: Journeyman
If socket > 1s47c: Master
Since greens have minor runes/sigils, and minor rune/sigils sell for like 20c, basic/CFSoM would be best. This is for peak profit. I would recommend just using basic/CFSoM because they are easier to carry around/use than crude – there will be slightly less profit, but the ease of use will make up for it.
There is a slight increase in the chance of promotion by using a higher kit, but it’s almost not enough to take into consideration. going from crude to master increases the chance from 10% to 15% (ish), so if you were salvaging lvl 80 heavy armor, you would get 5% more ori, which is a 20c increase per salvage, which does not justify spending 61c for the salvage kit.

Deciding to sell or salvage is hard for these. You have to look at the item type, level, and know what material that gives. I posted all that on the Profiting Guide in my signature. You’ll have to do the math. Personally, I recommend not caring that much about them. You might want to look through them real quick to see if any sell for like >20s, but usually I just salvage all whites, blues, greens (especially if you’re working on your luck mf). the sell price will 99 of the time be right around what the salvage value is.

guildwarstemple.com looks like it has timers for the world bosses, but not the temples. It shows the temples, just no timer for them. maybe I’m just looking at the wrong time and it would move them to the top if the event activated?

you can get ectos off level 68 and higher rares and exotics. most exotics are not good to salvage (as you’d only get like 1 ecto off it, vs. sell on TP for 1g). Some are, and those are the ones with expensive sockets or are able to give inscriptions or insignia. also, you get more ectos from exotics than rares.
the formula for deciding if you should salvage an exotic is a bit different:
if (ecto_sell_price*1.27+socket_sell_price+inscription/insignia_sell_price*0.42 +material_sell_price*material_drop_rate-kit_buy_price < item_sell_price) sell it
else salvage it
the inscription/insignia_sell_price. first, you have to know what stat types can drop those. they are the ones that can’t be crafted: Soldier’s, Magi’s, Rabid, Shaman’s, Sentinel’s, Dire, Cavalier’s. second, crafted exotics can never give inscirptions/insignia. third, it’s helpful to know which named exotic weapons don’t drop them even though they should. I think in general, it’s the ones that can only come out of champ bags. I’ve posted several times on this subject:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/The-right-Salvage-Kits-for-the-right-items/first#post4347596
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/Salvaging-exotics-for-Inscriptions/first#post2970307

there’s also the question of using a master kit or black lion kit. I recommend saving the black lion kits for the really expensive salvaged materials (In general, the limit is at about 70% of the price of 100 gems. 14g * 0.7 = 9g80s). If you’re literally swimming in black lion kits from key farming (for example), then you can lower your threshold to 8g, 7g, 6g; however low you think to use the kits as quickly as you get them, but I would still recommend saving them for more expensive stuff and not just use them everywhere.

14 ectos from 8 rares is really lucky; niccccce. you would normally expect to get 7 ectos from 8 rares. unless you’re using black lion salvage kits? (the gem store one) If you are, I’d recommend saving those for more deserving items (where the salvaged materials sell for >9g) you do get more ectos, but not nearly enough to make it worth buying those.

phys.7689:

Asmodeus.5782:

lakdav.3694:

I dont quite get the rage against this feature. Im completely indifferent about it. What is so bad about it being prof-specific on lvl80 and how does that effect the economy of the game so badly?

Leather is almost worthless.
Silk is really pricey.

Light classes > medium classes

And to be precise, the best farming class now would be mesmer, to also have a chance for the best (GS) precursor material.

unfortunately no, mesmer is one of the slowest classes to claim, they simply cannot compete in terms of claiming monsters. most of their skills are single target, and slow to hit.
if you had a pack of say 10-15 people mesmer can do alright, but 20+ they arent making enough claims to capitalize on their loot.

you need to play mesmer more. my strategy: hit you with clone, hit you with clone, hit you with clone, stand there, and… Mind Wrack and tag all the mobs! (20) admittedly it’s a bit slower than guardian AA, but tags far mobs when it happens. you can then repeat with Cry of Frustration for the next wave. Instead of the typical tag, tag, tag, tag, it’s: charge, TAG, charge, TAG. the other great one is Phantasmal Berserker, which can tag up to 20 targets, and Mirror Blade, plus you need to target far away mobs so GS AA hits all the ones inbetween.

I enjoyed that I would use sword for the first few levels, then switch to greatsword and have to learn the new skills slowly to acclimate to it, … , then switch to staff and have to learn those new skills and by this time I’m level 30. my understanding of the new system is that when I switched to staff I would have all the skills already unlocked at this point, which completely eliminates any ‘easing into the weapon so I can try all 5 skills’

which temple timer do you use? ever since gw2stuff closed, I can’t find a good one. I’d prefer one that also included world bosses.
I have a simple calculation for if you should salvage or not: check how much you can sell 1 ecto for. if the rare can be sold for more than that, sell it. if not, salvage it. currently ectos sell for about 42s, so that would be the cutoff. you don’t have to be strict: salvaging is more reliable way to get gold, so I will move the cutoff to about 45.
the actual formula is a bit more complex, but not necessary because it’s likely only a difference of 1-4s.

complex formula:
if (ecto_sell_price*0.875+socket_sell_price*0.8+material_sell_price*material_drop_rate-kit_buy_price < item_sell_price) sell it
else salvage it
an example:
ecto_sell_price= 42s
socket_sell_price = 4s
material_sell_price =3s (silk) x 2 = 6s (average drop rate for non-coat armors)
kit_buy_price = 61c (master SK)
total = 45s34c is the average sell price you get by salvaging the item (if it sells for more than that; sell it instead)
you would have to adjust this for every item: not all items have a socket (3s20c less), not all items drop silk (mithril is 5s48c less), not all items drop 2 materials (1H weapons drop 1.2 materials, coats drop 3), etc.

the good news is that you can directly compare sell prices and not worry about the TP tax – because you would either sell the materials you salvage or sell the items; both will get TP tax, and TP tax would be the same if the sell prices are the same.

I’d buy a gem store item that does that [transfers a craft from one character to another]! even if it’s just one-time use. 1000 gems sounds fair. I’d be willing to even pay up to 3000 gems for it, I’d just do it more carefully and less often.

yeah, this happens a lot of places. most annoying in places where you need to finish an event to open up a merchant – risen will soon attack, closing the merchant until the event is finished again. I like it – it makes everything seem more real, “you… you want to buy… carrots… while there are literally dozens of undead shooting you full of arrows right now… no. help me kill them, then we can talk”
I can’t think of a single spot where this more noticeable than at Cuadinti; where you need to click 1,425 times to buy sun beads to complete the Hylek Historian collection. (yes; you CLICK 1,425 times = almost 6 stacks of beads, purchased 1-at-a-time). when I buy beads, I will usually clickclickclickclickclick, fight off mobs, clickclickclickclickclickclickclick, fight off mobs, clickclickclickclickclickclick, fight off mobs. there is a good reason beaded weapons sell for so much on the TP.

A guildie of mine bought Sam just to link it in chat whenever he wnated to get another guildie’s attention, who’s name irl is Sam.

I doubt someone is going around buying 1 guild catapult. more than likely they buy 250. or 100. or even 50 at a time. maybe 10. no one ever needs just 1 catapult.
I would bet the 40-50 listings below yours were also purchased and you just didn’t see the page update (see Esplen). To actually get it to update, I find you need to click on a different section of the TP (go from buy to sell or visa versa or buy to transactions, etc.). It’s not enough just to go to a different part of the section you’re looking at.

I keep suggesting they should make these learned recipes account-bound instead of soulbound. I suggest you also suggest it (account-bound for this would mean that learning the ogre sharpening stone recipe on your ranger would also let your warrior make it if it had a high-enough level weaponsmith)

Not sure if this should be under bugs or TP, so I’ll post it under TP and the mods can bounce it back and forth.

Why am I amble to purchase Bank Tab and Bag Slot Expansions if I’m already maxed out for them? The other limited items don’t let you and instead say “You have already purchased the maximum number of this item.” I just saw these 2 and thought there was a stealth update that increased how many of these you can have. Luckily I read the info and counted how many I have before purchasing, but I’m sure some people have bought too many of them. (Or did they actually increase the limit but not change the text?)
Same applies to Digital Deluxe Upgrade… already bought it and it’s still available.

even if just item recipe unlocks (the items in your inventory you double-click to learn the recipe) were account-bound instead of soulbound I would be willing to level a duplicate craft on another char.

6 is indeed awesome. it drastically increased performance there as it just gets rid of that buy order and keeps you where you were instead of refreshing the page and taking you to the top. It still doesn’t add listings if you buy order something while viewing it, but that’s minor.
8 is good, but it’s funny how useless the scroll bar is.

v2/items is great to work with
I assume v2/recipes is on it’s way?

Behellagh.1468:

For the love of Mike you doubled the number of items yet left the scroll thumb taking 90% of the track while showing 1/8th of the list? How do you expect anyone to use that in a useful manner?

hehe, are you talking about the locator bar on the right of the buy and sell listings windows and how it takes up almost the full height, so there is no visible movement between top and bottom?
I asked google who Mike was. Top results: Mike Jones, Mike Jones, Mike Posner, Mike Jones, Mike Jones, Mike Jones, Mike Jones, Mike Jones, Mike Jones, Mike Rinder. oh, I see Mike Jones released a music album titled ‘who is mike’, which would explain why that exact phrase kept brining him up.

woot! I just heard on reddit about this and came here to say that, only to find you confirmed it so: woot!

If only I could merge my 4 crafting characters on to the only 2 of those characters I want to keep, then I’d be able to make use of additional crafting licenses.

Trading Post
1) Performance has been improved when navigating between sections on the Trading Post.
2) Recently viewed items on the Home tab now show the sell price instead of the buy price.
3) Recently viewed items on the Home tab now show quantities available.
4) My Latest Trades on the Home tab shows whether the transaction was a buy or a sell.
5) My Transactions tab defaults to showing current transactions.
6) Canceling a listing on the My Transactions tab no longer scrolls back to the top of the lists.
7) Projected Profit is now shown in the tooltip when you hover over the Total Price value.
8) The order form now shows 40 listing levels for buys and sells.
9) Edit box sizes on the order form have been increased.

I haven’t tried any of these out, but I wanted to comment on a few of them:
1 sounds handy though I don’t know what they are talking about. hopeful this is regarding it reseting your search when you add another criteria? in which case: yay!
2-4 sounds helpful though I don’t even use these parts so iuno.
I like 5
6 is A.W.E.S.O.M.E. I hope this also means the performance is also improved. (the problem was that it refreshes your orders when you cancel an order, drastically slowing down how quickly you can cancel orders)
7 I hope they didn’t use the old use of ‘projected profit’, because that is not the projected profit, but instead the projected return. ‘projected profit’ would be (total – fee – tax). I expect it will just be the old one of (total – tax), which is good enough to include for people who missed it.
8 is a step in the right direction. would still be useful to expand to infinite if a person needed it.
9 I like the sound of

on the flip side: you shouldn’t be able to get an ecto from something that doesn’t require an ecto to make.

Gems will need to go below 4g to buy 100 gems before it’s worth it to buy an upgrade extractor to recover a superior rune of the traveler (that’s at bulk pricing).
the last time that was the cast was sep, 2013 (14 months ago).
as it is, you can buy 3.5 superior runes of the traveler for the same price as 1 upgrade extractor.

same boat as OP – long play time, never randomly got a precursor. however:
If I were to ever find one, guaranteed it would not be the one I wanted and I would just sell it anyways then buy one I did want. So in effect, I see them as just an expensive drop. A drop I’d like to get, for sure, but I might as well get another Belladonna, meaning they both amount to the same thing to me: 500g.

Yamsandjams.3267:

It’s possible they’ll bring them back as a reward during some event in the future (i.e. maybe next time the crown pavilion is open), but we really just don’t know. IIRC, the recipes were account bound, so I don’t even think it’s possible for someone to sell one on the TP if they were still holding onto it.

they were not available the last time the crown pavilion reopened. these recipes were the only thing I wanted out of it when it reopened, and they were the only thing not available.
there are a few watchwork boxes that can drop a few of them:
resplendent can drop:
Recipe: Superior Rune of Exuberance
Recipe: Superior Rune of Perplexity
Recipe: Superior Rune of Tormenting
Recipe: Superior Sigil of Malice
elaborate can drop:
Recipe: Major Rune of Tormenting
Upon careful observation of spidy, you may notice the price of resplendent boxes went from 30s to 4g within a day or so of the crown pavilion not re-introducing these recipes. I admit I am partially to blame – I bought 1000 and dropped supply from 1300 to 300 (this was after someone else dropped supply from 2600 to 1300). then someone else bought more and made the price sky-rocket. I would of sold my 1000 for 4g each if I hadn’t already used them.
From those 1000, I got 2 runes of exuberance and 3 sigils of malice. So it takes about 200 boxes to get 1 recipe. at today’s prices, it would cost 200g to get a recipe.

Wanze, I would ask you if I could send you mats and you could craft some of these for me, but it seems self-defeating to have both of us be selling them. I’ve wanted to do what you are doing with them for the last year but haven’t been able to (I didn’t get into crafting for a profit until long after the first gauntlet)

Mayan calendar. don’t worry; we have about 2467 more years until that date hits.

Hi Corny!
^_^
ooooo, IoJ, we are currently fighting each other in WvW (Dragonbrand) otherwise I’d totally EotM with you. maybe next round we’ll be the same color.
Wait. Just. A. Second. can you do that? if two people in a party, on different servers, join EotM, do they get put on the same EotM map? and if their servers happen to be the same color, are they on the same team?

Do you remember that bug people complained about where they would get charged quartz crystals instead of regular quartz crystals from the giant wintersday gifts?
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Giant_Wintersday_Gift
then they patched it the next day:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-December-10-2013/first#post3357971
good times.
now I wish I knew about it before they patched it. a guildie of mine got like 300 charged quartz from it. not that he made celestial items; he just happened to open a lot of gifts and was annoyed he couldn’t sell the charged quartz.

mtpelion.4562:

Wanze.8410:

Make sure to have a farming tool equipped, then find a node and press f.

Make sure you have an appropriate level farming tool equipped.
Those ruined chunks of ore may stack nicely in your inventory, but they aren’t worth much.

they reimburse the cost of the tool
I really wish each node had a line on them about “requires level 45+ tool” or w/e. I hate being in an area, and every tree and ore requires a steel or high tool, but every shrub requires darksteel or higher.

Vanive.3804:

I think they need to level the playing field on this one just to be fair. I don’t care what prices were back in the day. I care about the now and tbh the watchwork pick offers a bonus for the same price nothing else does. Seems kinda dodgy to me.

personally, I don’t even care about the now. I care about how the game should be. do you want a game where you pay gems to get better items than are available elsewhere? I don’t.

Behellagh.1468:

Sounds more like the UI ran out of space.

this is probably it. they’ll likely have the same problem again when something hits 10,000g
as a workaround: cancel your last bid, pick up your gold, then 1c outbid the new highest. if you were outbid, this outbids them. if you weren’t, no harm.

I mostly agree with Wanze – promoting bronze ingots to iron ingots gives about 87.3 ingots per promotion. My research summation:
248 promotions = 62,000 starting mats = 21,653 promoted mats = 87.3105 promoted pats per promotion
this takes the iron ingots you throw into the forge into account. So on average, you will have 250 bronze ingot + 1 iron ingot, and end up with 88.3 iron ingots.

The only part I don’t agree with is his 3g/SP stated profits. I have seen it that high a few months ago, but usually it’s closer to 1.5-2g. You could increase it by buying copper/bronze when it dips, then selling iron when it peaks, but they only vary like 10c over a week, which is a difference of 3g vs. 3g34s, or 1.5g/SP vs. 1.7g/SP.
I just assume he’s being more sneaky and aggressive with buying even lower and selling even higher than I can be.

Sroced.9512:

I have yet to define if I want to add some kind of equivalence (like 100 000 karma = 1 Gold)

I like to keep gold, karma, SP, tokens separate but still display them all. example:
Price to sell:
6s97c

Price to make:
2s20c
+29.4Karma

Profit:
3s72c (169%)
1g26s68c/1000Karma

That way you can compare it to other things that require karma, to see if you’re getting a good deal or not. it’s no longer just TP trading, but instead converting karma into gold.
‘tokens’ could be dungeon tokens, or other tokens you need to collect that I can’t think of off the top of my head.

Captain.3940:

At first it seems the hard part is the fossilized insects since those only come from Sandstorm chests (need zephyr lockpicks to open, need geodes to get lockpicks) or from scoring 40k sPvP rank points toward the Maguuma Wastes region rewards (but then you get to pick the fossil, it’s not random).

the hard part with ambrite weapons is the recipe to craft the weapon. At T5, they cost 350 geodes each. 16 weapons = 5,600 geodes = 22.4 stacks. That takes a LOT of Dry Top event farming to collect. the insects are fairly easy in comparison. I don’t know the researched rates, but I got 4 insects from 20 keys, so I doubt the rate is super low. It takes far more geodes to buy the recipe than get an insect.

I think you might get 6 armors from completing this…
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_Armor_Chest
at least the wiki makes it sound like you do.

however:
http://dulfy.net/2014/09/08/gw2-items-collections-guide/#Ambrite_Weapon_Collection
dulfy says “Reward: 50 AP and Ascended Armor chest (double click to choose a piece of ascended armor)”

I feel like 6 armors would be too good of a reward?
for comparison, the Black Lion Collection rewards 7 tickets per collection, which could be either 1 or 7 additional exclusive skins.

Reminds me of that scam/abuse/tactic/whatever people used to do. Basically, they would buy $10,000 of prepaid credit cards with a credit card, use the prepaid card to pay off the credit card, then collect the 2% rewards cash back ($200), then do it again the next day. The article I was reading said people would do this to one card, then the company would catch on and stop the loophole, then they’d do it another card, etc. Amazon was one of those… I can’t find the article right now but I’ll keep looking.
edit: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/02/28/credit-card-reward-points-airline-miles-free/

I wish you luck spending Amazon credit on gems!