Unpopular Opinion: Should we really buy precursors?

[Biff.5312]

If I wanted a legendary, I'd just buy it. Let alone the precursor. If I WERE thinking of making a legendary item myself I'd definitely skip the aggravation and at least buy the precursor.

[MokahTGS.7850]

Currently, crafting Nevermore (the only legendary I'm interested in) will cost me 1,555 gold to craft using what I have in the bank/materials storage. I'm not under the impression that this should be a fast process, but I also see this as not that fun, since it seems like an awful lot for a weapon skin.

 

Personally, I'd rather see an account bound version of this be more quest based and not TP based.

[starlinvf.1358]

> @"Turkeyspit.3965" said:

> I'm not in love with any of the flashy skins for any of the existing legendaries, and the ones I do like are hardly worth the effort in obtaining, so no interest in crafting any legendaries for me.

>

> I have a friend who lists T5 mats on the TP pretty much daily, along with ecto and has even sold a a few pre-cursors. The gold he got in return went to buy skins or gems for mount adoption licenses, etc. Sounds like a win-win to me: players grinding legendaries can get mats faster if they have the coin, and players who have no interest in legendaries can still profit from obtaining crafting mats.

>

>

 

This right here ^

 

Precursor crafting is designed to Sink T5 mats. Of the T7 mats you might need for weapons, all of those can be bought refined off the TP, bypassing the time gate. If you've played the game for more then 6 months, or have a well established lvl 80 running around, you quickly realize how the TP integrates into the crafting system they've set up to sink materials out of it. Prior to Ascended Gear, T1 - T5 materials across the board were basically worthless. With Fractals and Ascended gear, it created a huge short sink for T2-T5 materials thats somehow lasted up to this day; mostly thanks to Especs encouraging players to spec multiple Alts.

 

They've also massively increased the rate of material gains in nearly all areas over the course of LS3, and increased the Liquid gold income by a noticeable amount. The result of this is players being more wealthy overall, and thus more willing to take part on the TP to fuel crafting projects as desired. With enough material excess, prices started to come down and stabilize, putting more projects in reach of more players. I remember when Leather was bottlenecking the entire market, and Cloth before it..... Now both items are still roughly at the same prices as before- but there is a lot more gold in the hands of players, and there are multiple methods for players to generate a usable amount on their own through various event farms. All of this together is closing the wealth gap for all but the most obtusely difficult items to obtain. And without a doubt, its intent was to get more players to get into the crafting system, get them to engage in the market, and keep everyone busier for longer.

 

The thing that a lot of people gloss over is the fact that despite the huge volume increase in crafting and trade, the rate of gold inflation in the game has been fairly minimal. Our big problem ultimately comes down to the fact that, for the longest time, we had no way reliable way to generate High Demand materials. Now that those sources have mostly been established across the 3 Campaigns, players using the TP the way it was supposed to work...... trade excess materials for coin, and use coin to buy the material needed for crafting. Legendary weapons just happened to be a major catalyst, as its no longer hard gated behind RNG drop, the Mystic Forge, or a massive material shortage that used to feed into the Mystic Forge. Stable conversion, despite the tax, leads to much higher confidence and trade volume.

 

Compare that to before, where people would dump thousands of exotics (most of which came from Dungeon tokens) for the chance at a Precursor; and despite the minuscule odds, the profit margins were huge. Do this enough times, and you had enough gold to flipping things on TP, or feeding back into Mystic Forge for yet another high value item. I remember when 300g would had taken months without selling all your T6 Fine mats (which you needed for legendary promotion), but was the average price of a Precursor. By a year and half into the game, popular Pre Cursors ran 600-1000g each. With a 1000g, you could enter a perpetual wealth gain cycle by buying pre-cursors, promoting them to legendary, and flipping them for 300-600g profit. The only substantial effort on your part was getting Gift of Exploration and Gift of Battle..... but gold is no longer a problem, lest you bought a skin or item that consumed most of your liquid assets.

 

What kind of boggled me though is how other people were getting their gold outside the TP. Gems for gold were never a good rate, so I imagine they must had been selling everything they got for smaller margin to the benefit of a huge amount of liquid gold to spend. I spent most of my time hoarding to do crafting, and not using the TP seriously until almsot 2 years in.

[Tasida.4085]

> @"Vayne.8563" said:

> You can't buy every title in Guild Wars 2 either, and you could buy most titles in Guild Wars 1, since people were able to pay for runs. Using GWAMM as an example is a poor one because it's a title made of of other titles, many of which could be bought.

>

> People farm gold in this game quite easily. If you're willing to farm gold you could have a precursor, any percursor on the TP in a week or two. I'm not willing to farm hard core, so it'll take me longer. But it's not an issue in my opinion.

 

This 100%

[Astralporing.1957]

> @"Commandant Alexei.2486" said:

> tl:dr precursors are massive investments of time or money, be it gold or gems. what are your opinions on the matter?

Yes, they are, and that's how it should be. Basically, their only reason to exist is to be a massive investment of time, money and/or effort.

 

Besides, you're overreacting. It's 90 deldrimors for Dusk, not 120, and you're not even limited by crafting those. The timegated component is _mithrillium_, which is relatively cheap to craft, so you can easily stock up on it even when not actively pursuing any legendary (same for other 3 equivalent legendary subcomponents). I always try to have at least 100-150 of each of those in bank just in case. With those, you can always farm up on required metal and craft as many deldrimors as you'd want if you'll feel you need those.

 

Also, you can always get lucky and drop a precursor directly.

 

...additionally, you seriously underestimate GWAMM.

 

 

 

 

[DeanBB.4268]

I've been playing since launch and the precursor for Flameseeker Prophecies dropped for me last year. I really had no interest in a shield, but had tons of materials hoarded up, so crafted the legendary over the course of a few months. I sold it and bought a permanent merchant and bank. Best decision ever!

 

So the ability to sell precursors and legendaries is an excellent choice given by Anet.

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

I have so far crafted 4 legendary weapons and one full set of legendary armor, with other in the works.

Just walkinng around i can tell there are ppl who did more ;)

 

Crafting a legendary, and more importantly more of them after that isn't about some year long titanic effort. It's about playing it smart and sticking to your guns.

First one i crafted was Twilight and i was **not** swimming in money back then. This was sweat blood and tear, that i soulbounded to my necro. Can't say i regret it but i couldn't been smarter.

 

2nd was Bolt. Necro doesn't use swords, right? Exactly. This was **for sale**. On top of that i hate bolt's looks. Twilight was to be sold for huge profit, then i would make a 2nd one and still have a hefty amount of gold left. But i gave in to temptation and soulbounded the first one.

 

So this time I chose a legendary i wouldn't be caught dead wielding, and that one too had to be created the hard way. Daily crafting, getting gold whatever way i can, just getting gold and mats. That's generally the basis of making a legendary without going crazy, if you're on a budget. Don't aim to buy every component. Don't aim to craft every component.

 

Aim to be where the mats you need drop, to get some gold and make it a daily habit. After some time, you will have enough mats, to save a large amount of gold compared to when buying it all off TP, and enough gold to buy the amount you need to complete tha legendary gifts.

 

Once you have that legendary of yours, sell it (obviously i'm talking gen 1 legendaries). There is a sweet difference in gold between crafting one yourself, and buing it off tp. That'll be your profit. Around 700g if you do it right (legendary that sells). That 700g is your reward for doing map completion - the part you must do to craft season 1 legendary, and cannot buy off tp.

 

Also be very careful with pricing. There's a 15% tax on sales. You can use that for a quick sale. Look at how much ppl are buying legendary for (could be they are merchers). Look how much they are selling it (also could be merchers). Assume that if you sell it for price low enough that they will make profit putting it up for sale after suffering 15% tax, you'll prolly sell it fast.

 

**I won't**. Because i hate'em. I put mine for price that while being in the middle of buy vs sale offers, ensured they would not get profit if they merched it. If i recall right at that time Bolt had 2200g buy offers, 2599g sale. I put mine up for 2449g. Sold in matter of few hours, one hour in one case (i sold total 3 of them over time).

 

If it's your first, don't overprice it. You'll be dirt poor after all that gold sunk into making it, and if it doesn't sell you'll go crazy. 50g gold less is not a big price to pay for peace of mind after quick sale and HUGE amount of gold in pocket.

 

From there remember to **split** your money into two sums. One is the **cannot touch** gold meant to fund the next legendary crafting. It'll bring good returns, it's an investment.

**Other** is your "pocket and current needs** money. that's the money you can use to reward yourself for your effort buying some cool shit you want, and to have for any soft of emergency.

 

As long as you stay true to above rule and don't violate your "investment fund", next legendaries will come much easier, quicker and will keep your financially aflot, to the point you'll start making some for sale, while some for yourself and not sink your boat while doing so.

 

 

[Dante.1763]

TBH yes i think you should be able to.

 

After playing this game since pre release, i *FINALLY* got a precursor to drop, from the forge.

If i had to rely on either forging them, or getting them from drops, id never have gotten any of the four that i have now.