What is the best time of the day to buy gems

[leunamsil.6742]

Hi, just like the title asks, what is the best time of the day to buy gems with gold or gold with gems? By best time of the day i'm asking when is gems at the lowest price and when is gold bought per gem at the highest.

 

Tyvm in advance

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Your day, or the game's day?

 

I'd say it's best when nothing of great interest is being offered in the Gem Store, and soon after a new expansion is released. And then, for me, late at night. But, every time zone would be different as far as 'day' goes.

[leunamsil.6742]

I guess i'm talking about Universal Time Coordinated (UTC), since i guess, if i'm not mistaken, its the time zone the game functions with (at least in europe)

[Yonax.4795]

The price changes consistantly based on supply and demand. There is a really usefull website for this: https://gw2efficiency.com/currencies/gems

 

Here you can see the changes in price over time, and predict the best value for your money from it. Usually its early morning and during the week.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

I've checked periodically, looked at charts, studied data sets, and my conclusion is:

**There isn't a single moment of the day, day of the week, or month of the year that I can definitely point to as "better" than any other.**

 

Plus, the data is... not as reliable as I'd like for this. For example, during one particular month (last year), I was able to purchase at a rate of 400 gems for under 100 gold and yet when I looked at the data, it never showed the rate going lower than 105-110. That's because the tracking sites only take a snapshot, every 5-10 minutes and the rate jumps around wildly throughout the day.

 

There are minutes that have been more likely to have more spikes and hours more likely to show drops, without being consistent for long enough to predict future trends. It's better to take some time to understand what drives those abrupt changes and to keep an eye out.

 

The first thing to remember is that gems are traded in an exchange: the rate only changes when people are buying or selling gems. So rates will jump when people want to suddenly buy things (with gold) and the numbers only fall quickly when people decide to invest a lot of RL money.

 

The things that cause people to convert gold (driving rates up)

* Any discount on BL keys, character slots, storage of any kind, and any type of wings

* The introduction of new MountFits.

* March Sales (which typically include all of above).

* New seasonal items

* New BL chest, with coveted items

* New WvW matchups or other things that generate a lot of transfers

 

And things that cause people to convert RL cash to coin (via gems, driving rates down) are:

* Holidays in which players are likely to receive gem cards as gifts.

* New expansions

* New Living World episodes.

 

None of the above is directly related to time of day, although a spike due to changes in the gem shop are more likely around 9 am Pacific (when they change is announced) and big patches are more often on Tuesday than any other day.

 

tl;dr there's no particular time that is more likely to have cheaper rates

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

Instead, I encourage people to buy gems regularly throughout the year, using any of the following plans:

* Check frequently, buy when the rate looks good (these days, anything 125g/400 gems or below is great; 130-140 has been typical for a while)

* Convert a fixed amount of gold at set intervals (e.g. convert 200 gold on the 1st of the month or 20 gold every Friday)

* Convert a fixed fraction of what's in your wallet at set intervals (e.g. convert 20% on Mondays, i.e. 20 gold if you have 100g or 200g if you have 1000).

 

The first guarantees you'll have gems bought at the lowest rates, with the disadvantage that you might not have any gems when you need them (and you have to pay attention). The second and third methods guarantee you'll have gems at somewhat average rates, neither worst case nor best case. The main difference between the latter two is psychological, so pick whichever one feels better to you.

[Gop.8713]

Short answer: six hours after reset . . .

 

Long answer: Everyone knows the best time to buy gems is six hours after reset, so it's not always the best time to buy gems. You're better off just farming gold and saving up until you catch a favorable exchange rate, then convert gold to gems and store them until a sale. Rn I'd say hold gold until gems drop to less than 125 . . .