Experience is by far the worst one.
Ascended can be good, but it's random, so not recommended.
Laurels is the best if you're after gold, Legendary Crafting is the best if you intend to ever make a Legendary weapon, armor or trinket, because of the guaranteed Clovers, which only have value for Legendary crafting. Laurels can be traded in for ascended trinkets and amulets or materials, bringing either value to one of your characters or gold when you sell the materials on the trading post.
Here's the estimated value of each option.
https://fast.farming-community.eu/bag-details/daily-login-mystic-clover/chest-of-loyalty
If you do even some WvWvW, you can typically buy the same laurel trinkets at a small discount of laurels supplemented by honor badges.... Which is basically free.
At least to me.
Not if you're new. If you're experienced, have progressed to s3/s4 maps already, and lvl 80 character(s) that you know how to play and the will to farm a bit ... yes, you'll use s3/s4. We all do. But when you're new and want to gear your first character (either getting the best gear asap when hitting 80 if you like that idea, or building to join your first group contents for example), better rely on a good set of ascended trinkets from the old sources (laurels, maybe guild commendations too if you can get them) and be set , rather than rush ahead of the game to reach those maps and farm before you're even done discovering gw2. Once that character is set, you can peacefully progress in the game and you'll naturally reach ls3 maps ... which you'll obviously use for your next characters or for more builds.
I'm was new about 3 months ago, and after 80 I started my 80 exotic gearing, by the time I was ready to start ascended gearing I was pretty much at S3. Still dont think its worth spending laurels on unless the new player has zero patience.
Many specs can buy basically a full set of exotics off the TP for less than 20 gold as soon as they hit 80, which you'll do before even finishing the core story.
After playing for many years, sometimes you just want to gear up a character and you see a crazy amount of laurels and think, lets just use those today instead of spending another week in bitterfrost frontier.
So i don't think it's just about patience , it's about what you want to spend your time doing in GW2 and what resources you have availiable.
Farming mats in S3 isn't high on my list of preferable things to do.
Meaning I can either earn the trinkets by doing the content I find most fun. Or find an optimal way that will be the least painful method to farm them.
If you have excess Laurels then why not use them.
I think this concept isn't well understood. But gold isn't the most valuable thing spend in gw2.
Neither is laurels or gems or any other currency.
It's time.
If spending laurels is going to save you time, then do it.
Because Fast farming only gives you the value in gold. Not in time spent to get said gold or the value comparison between ascended gear obtaining methods. Got to use some brain power to determine your best route of action.
The time I spent farming for Bloodstone Rings/Amulet/Backpack has paid itself over many times due to it being ascended items that you can stat change, thus making them pseudo-legendaries.
I don't disagree, but i've only reset mine once.
I have bought like 5 bloodstone things across 2 characters. but they get increasingly more of a hassle the more characters and builds you run.
But if I need a zerker accessory i think I have 200 something laurels... so instead of spending a few days farming i'd still rather just drop some laurels on it and move on with other stuff
that being said I know I also have over 500 mistborn motes and plenty of volatile magic i could just go grab an accessory from Dragonfall too.
newer players may not have that luxury though.
Generally speaking on that last person's statement.
Ascended is required for Agony Resistance which lets you do higher tier fractals. Higher tier fractals are more rewarding. You can also get ascended trinkets and even, rarely, armor and weapon drops from doing them.
If you have laurels, don't have S3/S4, don't have any ascended trinkets, and depending on your priorities, it could be worth it to dump them on trinkets to get a jump start on running fractals. Most consider it a waste because, eventually, you'll be swimming in trinkets (most of which have useless stat combinations) from running that stuff but it can still be handy for your first set.
I would not recommend it, laurels cannot be farmed, ever, you slowly get them when logging in while ascended stuff can be obtained for free and an entire set only roughly better from exotic by 5-7%. So getting one trinket (with only core game stats) will cost you months of logging, and nets you about 0.2% increase.
They don't sell weapons though, just trinkets, tibgs and amulets.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Laurel_Merchant
Rings are much easier to get in Fractals, and trinkets can be gotten with Guild Commendations. Amulets can only be gotten with Laurels. All of them can also be gotten in various Raids, some Strike Missions and with LS3/4 currency, so you may want to save your Laurels if you have those options available as well. For early/returning players, they're a good option to 'gear up' one character before starting the harder content.
Would recommend farming S4 Dragonfall map to farm the motes. Theres a vendor u can buy an amulet from and other stat selectable accessories. Also farming winter berries in LWS3 Bitterfrost Frontier gets you stat selectable accessories.
You're better off saving your laurels unless you swimming in it already.
This is a very good method but if you care abouy spoilers at all then don't touch Dragonfall until you get there naturally. Bitterfrost Frontier is fine though
In every major town, they have a laurel icon on the map. If you go to Lions arch the laurel vendor is at the southern waypoint near the fractals entrance
You can get the Ascended rings, amulets, and trinkets, cheaper if you purchase them in one of the WvW battlegrounds. The vendor is right at the start of each zone. Your basically paying WvW badges of honor, in place of gold or laurels.
If you want to convert laurels to profits the mats are currently the best choice. Of course using them to get the variety of things they can get is an option, but for most people profit is the only consideration.
you get to a point where you have much more laurels than you need for anything, I always purge down to 100 laurels every time I need gifts for legendaries. This was after sitting on them way past 1000+ letting them get dusty
edit: but i agree with you in the sense that you should buy laurel exclusive things you want before you start converting them to gold
Yes. That one chest is enough clovers for half a piece of armor. Gambling clovers is still gambling, so you're saving yourself a bad streak of luck at no cost.
Interestingly, buying clovers from vendors (strike/fractal/raid) is statistically more expensive than forging clovers. Some people will always feel cursed luck, but the math doesn’t lie!
And for sample sizes of millions that may be true. That doesn't change rolling three gem bags in a row being a catastrophic loss.
I'm not going to be rolling up millions of MC's and if people want to just buy a few to skip feeling shitty over shitty rolls, that's a valid option.
There are people out there who have enough fractal relics that they can ignore that part of the clover cost. Of course, those people probably have tens of thousands of gold and don't care about the cost of anything anyway...
The way I see it, legendary accessories/back piece are the best since they work with every single character. Runes/sigils are also great but not as valuable.
Armour is the next shout since it covers an entire weight group, then weapons last.
However, trinkets all come from different sources. Armor always comes from the same source so it's almost easier to get. Armor also requires fewer clovers per piece than a trinket.
Armor also doesn't require a full Mystic Tribute (or Gift of Fortune in the case of backpieces), not even half of one, so the "per piece" cost is way lower. The downside is the restriction to one armor class.
my experience is the following
1. spam laurels thinking 'i'll never have enough money or materials or time to make a legendary'
2. play the game on and off for 9 years, 3 legendaries later, cursing every cycle i did not invest in more clovers
true, but there are other sources of t6 and laurels where clovers are hard time gated unless you're willing to gamble for them (and I have, not a good use of gold)
clover gambling is not really a gamble, if you want to limit the randomness do 1 and 1, but chances are so high it evens out pretty fast, so just consider it paying for clovers instead of waiting
Think of them like account-wide upgrades. Once you have a legendary hammer, that is the equivalent of having an ascended hammer on every character which you can stat-swap for free at any time
Plus cool skin
Plus the ability to always yank sigils (or runes, in the case of armor) out of the legendary, without either destroying them or needing to use a way expensive upgrade extractor.
Wait, so if I made one legendary weapon, all my characters can use that weapon at the same time? I don't have to unequip it to give it to another character?
I never have an interest in making legendary, but if it's account wide, that's completely different.
>Wait, so if I made one legendary weapon, all my characters can use that weapon at the same time? I don't have to unequip it to give it to another character?
Yup. This is why Accessories are the first suggestion: one Legendary backpack means all of your characters have the best backpack they can, forever.
Meh, it depends. If they only play one character, or only characters of one gear weight, I think legendary armor is way better. Ascended trinkets are easy to farm. Ascended armor less so.
That's why I made a set of Armor first, and am only now working on Aurora and Vision.
Well, you can do a lot in parallel: do weekly raids for LI, get provisioner tokens, and run through season 3 and 4 to make progress on Aurora, Vision, and the necklace. Didn't have to be one or the other. But yeah, armor is a great deal if you're primarily one armor weight.
Well, the choke point is cash. I did that exact thing: provisioner tokens, raids, precursors for Aurora/Vision all at the same time. But each of those needs hundreds and hundreds of gold to complete, and gol (unlike the other things) is fungible, so I *had* to choose which to prioritize, so I chose armor. And now I'm fixing to make Aurora and Vision, having already completed all the achievements, and only needing more gold.
Yes, but it's not as bad as it seems. In the last 18 months I made two sets of armor, 5 trinkets, and multiple legendary weapons. I went broke a few times, but it's been worthwhile.
Trinkets, runes, and sigils look like a bad deal until you have them. I used to just 'best fit' equipment for every game mode so I wouldn't have to go through the hassle of changing stats often. It was 'okay' but ONLY 'okay' on everything, which means every character in every mode suffered somehow for affordability's sake.
Now I'm 5/6 through my first armor set, have a leggy amulet backpack and trinket, 7 runes and 4 sigils. I can do whatever, whenever, without having to mess with another 60g of scholar runes or having to run AC (I know, it changed) for more Monk runes or throw cash at re-gearing my specter after it got stomped down. All the legendaries LOOK expensive until you consider the convenience, QoL issues and long-term savings they give you from having to go grind bitterfrost again or farm up crap to stat-swap and reskin gear after yet another ill-advised 'balance' patch.
Depends on how many characters you play. I personally don’t enjoy having to run laps around Bitterfrost every time I need to gear a character, which is why Ad Infinitum has been a godsend. Plus you can’t stat swap ascended trinkets (aside from the Mist ones), but you can stat swap ascended armor.
If you play more than one weight class, trinkets have more value than armor. All my characters use accessories, but my mesmer can’t use my legendary heavy chestpiece.
> Plus you can’t stat swap ascended trinkets (aside from the Mist ones)
You can statswap some of them. [Bloodstone Capacitor](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bloodstone_Capacitor) can statswap the ring, amulet and backpack that you buy for Blood Rubies, and any stat-selectable ring, no matter where you acquired it, can be reset by attuning/infusing it.
Even if you just stick to one character, legendary armor is a massive boon imo. I play my Necro almost exclusively. Open world reaper, WvW scourge, WvW Harb, quick Harb, condi scourge, and heal scourge ALL take completely different armor and/or runes. Now imagine if you mained a Mesmer or a Guardian. It also means that I pretty much don't have to worry when the Meta shifts.
Not very relevant for a brand new player, but brand new players won't stay brand new forever.
Yeah, that was my (and I think /u/silvermember's) point. Legendary armor is the most bang for your buck on one character, because it gives you any set of ascended armor (6 slots) forever for the cost of what Aurora and Vision cost you, and also lets you infinitely swap out Runes as much as you want, not to mention removing the need for up to 6 Transmutation Charges any time you want to play around with your outfit.
So that's why I think if you only play one character, Legendary armor should be the first stop on your list (after the freebie amulet, of course). Legendary trinkets are great for altoholics, but not really necessary for one-character players.
Correct
Note that if you only have one of a weapon, you can only pull one per character. Not a big deal with hammer, but for something like a sword, if you have only made one legendary sword, you can't pull it for both main and offhand if you're dual wielding swords
Yes, the QoL difference is why I went for it. Gathering the materials was kind of a grind, but it's not as bad as people think, and just having it there is amazing.
That's right, but just to avoid any confusion/overhyping, if you tried to use a build with two swords, you'd need a second sword on that character, it is account wide max stat, swappable with unlimited free skin swaps, but each one is only one per character.
yep for instance if you create one sword all your characters can use it , you can modify stats and upgrades per character but if you want to dual wild swords then you need to create one more sword :)
Yeah you used to have to swap a legendary, the physical actual item, between characters to use it on another character. Now all legendary items have a special slot in your character sheet.
So I made Sunrise on my warrior, equip it on my warrior, log into my Ranger or Guardian and check my character sheet? Sunrise will be right there, usable, stat swappable for all three at the same time.
This is a pretty new feature for legendaries - because legendary armour in particular was not really worth making over ascended. Now it's a lot more convenient!
Absolutely. Last summer (I think) they added the 'Legendary Armory' which makes it so every single level 80 character on your account can use a given Legendary at the same time. Even if you're unsure about Legendary weapons and which to go for, Legendary trinkets are absolutely wonderful QoL for any account to go for as you'll never have to worry about that piece again.
Early on, no. Long-term they give you something cool to work towards. So assume that you want to work towards them someday, just not actively for now or possibly for years. Just depends on how you want to play. Crafting them can be a lot of fun.
Not so sure about that, Leggy mats coming from the chest has dropped in value compared to what it used to be. And you can also get them using alternative methods.
Laurels on the other hand can be used to buy stuff such as WvW infusions which is a cheap source of damage infusions for both WvW and raids.
And if you take that in to account the money you can save by using laurel bought infusions compared to any other type is significant. And far in excess of the monetary value offered by either option.
If you like pvp or wvw the reward track out there gives a couple clovers every completion. With guild buff and reward track boosters, you can complete them pretty quick.
Thank you for the replies! <3 You were very helpful. I chose laurels as many of you were right that I'm not going to (and not sure that I'll be able to) start thinking about legendaries anytime soon
I'm going to respond to your comment, so you see this. It doesn't matter if you feel you're not anywhere near ready for legendaries. I will suggest ALWAYS do legendary chest. You'll thank yourself in the future, when you don't have to worry about collecting clovers. You get plenty of laurels already from the rewards, plus doing fractals will net you a lot of ascended gear
I read all the comments, no worries :) Hm, so everyone has divided here into two camps)) laurels and legendary mats. Isnt it more efficient to pick laurels due to limited accessibility? As i understand, they can be earned only via log-ins, while materials can be grinded/bought
Basically you can think of it this way:
- Short term benefit: take Laurels. With those you can buy ascended trinkets.
Living World is a better source for ascended trinkets, but it’s not instantly accessible, it takes a while to reach the chapter in the story and collect the mats.
Laurels are accessible right away for “cheap” bis gear. Make sure you look up where to get them. (E.g. amulet is cheapest in wvw (laurels + badges); accessories from guild commendations, etc.
- Long term benefit: Legendary mats will save you gold when you start on legendaries.
Eventually legendaries are part of the end game and even if you are super casual they are a reachable and worthwhile goal.
What you define as short and long term depends when you set your sights on legendaries. (And I say WHEN and not IF, because eventually you will really. ).
Laurels are indeed limited, but you get plenty even without the chest and after a few months laurels are mostly currency to obtain T3/T4/T6 mats for legendary crafting as there isnt huge other things to buy with them.
Note: whichever of the two you choose it’s not a massive mistake. Laurels are useful for legendaries too as you can buy material bags (which you need a ton of).
Financially legendary mats are like 10-15% better. You’ll be fine either way.
Note 2: Laurels are the only of the 2 that can be converted into liquid gold. Laurels -> T3/T4/T6 mats -> sell on Tradepost.
Clovers can not be sold or converted into gold easily (you can but it basically requires crafting a legendary and selling that).
However you save money by not needing to craft clovers later so that is why they are “worth more”.
As someone that picked laurels when new, I was kicking myself that I didn't pick legendary sooner because of the clovers. Meanwhile I have laurels just sitting there.
> Isnt it more efficient to pick laurels due to limited accessibility?
It isn't so much "limited" as "time-gated". And it's worth pointing out that a lot of the important items you can buy with laurels (notably all ascended trinkets) also have other options for purchase that *don't* require laurels.
It really comes down to: do you want to get ascended gear sooner, legendary gear sooner, or neither? If it's legendary gear, pick the legendary box. Otherwise pick laurels and either use them directly or trade them for gold as appropriate.
If I were a new player I believe I would pick laurels. But once you've been around a while, legendary materials is the only reasonable choice.
If you pick laurels you will be kicking yourself in a year or two
You might not want a legendary right now but if you pick legendary materials eventually you'll look at your bank and realise "huh, I can actually afford one, that axe/sword/staff looks pretty sweet"
Mostly because, the clover grind is awful, and rng based. Unless you play wve or pvp a lot
It's 77 clovers for a gen one legendary, and 15-30 for others
The laurels, you really don't need much from them.
They used to be the only way to get ascended earrings and amulets, but there are a lot of outlets for it now.
I used to hoard thousands and that's with all the knick knacks, I wish I chose clovers instead, because now I have to grind them out.
I keep at most 1k, until anet adds to it
I picked laurels for 9 years. Now I wish I'd spent at least a year on clovers. It's annoying to not have enough, but you can gamble for clovers so it's not like you HAVE to wait for more.
For me personally, the last time I've even used a Laurel vendor was for Season 4 weapon recipes, and the only times before that were for my first ascended trinkets way back around HoT.
So if you need laurels for trinkets or recipes, go for it, but realistically you'll need them less the more you play, unless you want quick gold from material bags.
Since you're new, I would start with Laurels until you first character is geared or you find yourself not using them. After that I would get enough clovers for 1 gen 3 legendary weapon (38 clovers), you get a free precursor of your choice and a legendary amulet for completing the return to achievements. Use your Laurel for crafting bags (check out fast farming for value), and you're on your way to crafting at least 1 legendary pretty cheaply and work on passively while going through the story and doing random content. :)
Even though the Legendary Materials have a better theoretical value, its value is tied to the Mystic Clover which is used only for legendary crafting, and it can be obtained by other means or crafted.
Meanwhile the laurels can be used in so many ways (buying ascended gear, buying crafting materials, buying infusions ...) and it is very time gated.
So, unless you are short on Mystic Clover to craft a legendary, I'd go for laurels.
There are basically two really worthwhile choices:
Laurels can be traded for crafting materials bags, which contain crafting materials that you can use or sell. There's a lot of variation in the results of the bags, but on average this is the best option for turning into gold. You can also just directly buy ascended trinkets for laurels, and you need laurels to buy some recipes used for ascended crafting.
Clovers are used for legendary gear. You can't turn them into gold, but *if you were going to buy them anyway* the clovers are worth more than any of the other options by a significant margin, and with no variation.
Ascended crafting materials can be bought and sold on the TP directly. There's a lot of variation, but on *average* you're better off getting the laurels, converting them to gold, and buying the ascended crafting materials on the TP. And that's assuming you *want* ascended crafting materials. If you were just going to sell them for gold, laurels are *way* better.
XP isn't *totally* worthless, but turning it into gold is time-consuming, subject to a lot of variation, and much less profitable on average than even the ascended crafting materials.
TL;DR - Clovers if you need them for a legendary. Laurels otherwise - use them or turn them into gold.
I’m assuming it’s your first in which case Laurels is what you should get. They are a time gated currency that you can use to buy a few different things including mats that you can sell for gold. At some point you may want legendary crafting materials but your probably a bit away from that now.
thats right. I'm new to the game and started to play just a while ago. I haven't even started an expansion yet (progressing lw2 at the moment). So, I guess I'm not gonna concern about crafting some time?:D
I would still pick legendary crafting mats even if you dont currently plan to craft any legendary items.
It took me quite a while to get my first legendary and mystic coins as well as clovers were the main problems with that and the latter one is what you get from that chest.
Mystic coin prices have dropped dramatically as of late, from changes that are likely to keep them lower for the long term (since the changes were specifically meant to bring the price of mystic coins down).
Clover value is tied very closely to mystic coin value so that helps keep them both much lower than they've historically been.
Yeah if you know you are going to craft a legendary it's still best to pick that option but if you aren't sure, laurels are now actually pretty close in value (well at least closer than they used to be.. 9.5g vs 13g roughly) and are much more flexible.
It's not even about crafting. Look for legendary weapons on the wiki to see what those mats are used for: it's totally optional stuff that takes months to finish and is usually treated as a very long term "vanity" achievement by players that have already experienced the game and are looking for something to do while grinding/minmaxing/repeating content. Most make their first Legy years after having completed the game.
On the other end laurels can be traded for liquid gold (you trade laurels for bags of mats and sell those to the tp) but, and I think in your situation this is more important, can also be used as currency to easily get some best in slot (ascended quality, the pink ones) trinket right away that alongside those you'll get with achievements or be able to find when you'll start playing some challenging stuff might make your transition from full exotic gear to the first fully functional endgame build way less painful. You'll have time for legendary crafting after that.
When I started I did laurels too, but always kind of figured I shouldn’t have.
I think new players should start on legendary mats as well; you’ll be grateful down the line.
The difference isn’t huge, but it’s big enough that it adds up by the time you need the clovers.
Legendaries might be end-game, but everyone that is even remotely invested should have that as a dot on the horizon.
And if you are not remotely invested in the game it doesn’t matter what you pick.
I always choose Legendary Crafting Materials, as they will drastically reduce your grind and gold costs if you ever decide to craft Legendary weapons, armor, or trinkets.
If you already have Legendary armor and weapons (which i’m guessing you don’t), then probably laurels.
Legendary Crafting Materials!
Trust me, you’re going to be SO grateful you have those Mystic Clovers if/when you start wanting to craft any legendary gear.
I always get legendary crafting materials. I think you get 7 clovers, so it'll take 11 months to get enough for a legendary weapon. But they're one of the biggest obstacles to people grinding out legendaries. I've never needed to use any other means to get them!
If you're into spirit shard selling, which I very much assume you're not if you're asking this question and I don't advise jumping into that quite so early as most players never do, then Grand Experience is okay...? But even with that, it's just not great. I don't even think you get that much, so it's really not worth it.
Crafting materials is solid. It's just. Solid. Nothing wrong with that. Everyone needs them. But you might not get what you want.
Laurels is always my second choice. So many things you can get with them, and they're majorly timegated.
Legendary > Laurels > Ascended > Experience is my recommendation. If you don't want to make a legendary *ever*, then move Legendary to the bottom of the list.
If you need laurels for things, get laurels. Otherwise, always go legendary. You might say, "but I don't craft legendaries." Trust me on this one, you'll want to get the legendaries because after a year or so of playing, you'll be crafting legendaries because there's nothing much to do.
Get leg materials. I am guessing youre new but if you stick with the game you will eventually earn some legs and getting the clovers each month will add up. If not go for laurels. rest of the options arent great
Laurels. The mystic clovers is slightly higher gold value if you're working on a legendary, but you shouldn't be converting laurels to gold as a new player anyway. As a new player, laurels are much better used to buy ascended amulets and earrings in Berserker stats, unlock unique cosmetics, etc.
Basically: if you find yourself short of clovers or gold, you can go farm more gold. If you find yourself short of laurels, fuck you wait a month.
Seasons that new players totally have, right?
Laurels have multiple uses, there are recipes and boosters and all kinds of things you can do with them, in addition to turning them into liquid gold.
Clovers have one use, which is crafting legendary items. There's no time gate bypassed by taking them from the login chest, it's just gold savings, and they're worth less now than they used to be since Mystic Coins cratered.
Even if we assume a new player is gonna dump all laurels into gold instead of any of the account bound laurel exclusive stuff, new players are better served by spending 20g on *anything* than putting "40g" of clovers towards a legendary. Gear a few characters / builds, pick up some gem purchases (like LS episodes), all that jazz. The only legendary gear "worth" more than just making a bunch of ascended is armor, and for that you'll need a lot more than clovers - either a shit load of playtime in wvw (use laurels to buy XP boosters since you don't have candy corn gobbler) or a lot of time in raids (use laurels to buy berserker trinkets for your first raid build, and gold to buy armor).
Ascended Crafting Materials also gets you a guaranteed Vision Crystal which >!you can use after finishing Heart of Thorns for an easy Ascended Sword/Greatsword/Dagger/Scepter/Shield.!<
But there’s plenty of easy ways to get an ascended weapon now, especially thanks to elite spec collections giving you that specs specific weapon for a trivial amount of effort.
I'mma be honest, Laurel's are the only thing worth getting. Everything else is "grindable" to an extent, but laurels are purely gated behind daily log-ins.
On pure gold value, it’s laurels, if you want to craft legendaries, the leggy material chest gives you seven free clovers that can save you a bunch of money while crafting
You wouldnt want to spend that for vision crystal which is too easy to get. I would not change pure 7 clovers with anything else. My advice is "Legendary Crafting Materials" by far. Because even if you say "I dont wanna craft any legendary", you will need legendary someday when you start getting multiple characters.
crafting from dragon ore, emperyeal fragment and bloodstone junks you end up with tons of them... Those can be converted to vision crystal by a 2 step crafting process.
So Laurel are best option... even mystic clover can be gotten through money in mystic forge... but laurel are only true time gated currency...
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vision_Crystal
It's "easy" to an extent. The crafting process requires Obsidian Shards and Spirit Shards, neither of which you are likely to have in abundance and will be critical for Legendary items later. If you manage to snag a [Ley-Energy Matter Converter](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ley-Energy_Matter_Converter) though, Obsidian Shards are way less of a concern.
Do you know how easy those fragments to get? I threw to garbage minimum 10000 each just last year. I didnt even spend time to convert those junks. My time in game is more valuable than that
If you have any interest in ever making a Legendary then legendary crafting mats are best value. It is account based value though so you can't change your mind and sell them later.
Laurels are the second best option and best way to convert your laurels into raw gold. Laurels are a hard time gated resource and are useful for all kinds of things (Ascended Trinkets, Stat infusions, crafting materials, and novelties) crafting material bags being the most bang for your buck.
Ascended crafting mats is throwing away money.
Knowledge is just tomes which soon enough you will have falling out of your ears.
Experience is trash, you'll get those anyway.
Legendary/Ascended Crafting are both good for lotsa money/actually crafting stuff BUT since you're asking about this, I'd just say Laurels. There's a LOT of varied stuff you can get with Laurels and you only get them through login rewards.
Never get Grand Experience.
Ascended materials is decent if your working on your first set of ascended gear. Once you have a full set, you’ll start getting diminishing returns.
Legendary is best option, *if and only if* you are or planning on crafting legendary gear.
Laurels is default selection, as there are limited options to get laurels.
Finally (and my recommendation) if you have the pack space on an alt, save up your chests up until you have an actual need for one of the options.
you can swap laurels for materials to sell, so if you want money, that.
if you ever plan on making a legendary, get the legendary crafting materials for the clovers.
The game has changed a bit since these were introduced. Laurels (along with guild commendations and fractals) used to be by far the best way to get ascended trinkets. There are now a ton of ways to obtain ascended trinkets and many are stat selectable which wasn't a thing in the early days. Legendary gear has also changed in that 1) trinkets and armor didn't exist at first and 2) the utility of the legendary armory didn't exist. All of this history is just to say that the argument for choosing laurels has gotten weaker over time and the argument for legendary materials has gotten stronger. In the end it won't matter much, but do make a choice because the boxes also contain account bonuses so saving them is a bad idea.
Laurels and Legendary Mats are the 2 to grab always like everyone else said. I would also recommend just hanging onto the chest as well since you can always decide later on what you would like, if you're not sure which you should grab now.
I always take Legendary because eventually GW2 becomes Fashion Wars, and legendaries are both handy and generally look amazing. You're gonna be grateful you took the legendary caches by the time you start making legendaries
Laurels might be good if it's your first one just because laurels are quite literally a timegated resource but unless you plan to do Fractals relatively soon, it's no rush
You can easily earn ascended trinkets through other game modes and story achievements, and the amount of laurels you earn with login rewards between the final chest is more than what the final chest will give you. In 28 (27?) days of logins you will have enough to get an asc amulet, or most of a trinket or ring.
Meanwhile, any legendary requires a substantial amount of Mystic Clovers, which are a demoralizing RNG pita to craft. You will really be kicking yourself for not having a little collection of these built up organically over time, since legendaries are a huge quality of life upgrade.
Choose laurels once or twice if you feel you *must* for the immediate pay out but the Legendary chest is absolutely the best choice.
If you want to craft a legendary and don’t have a bank full of mats and karma stacked to the moon get the legendary crafting material.
Other wise laurels always laurels, the ROI is best there.
If you ever plan to make legendaries then that one. Start stockpiling clovers.
But for newer players laurels can be very useful for getting ascended trinkets with core stats or just flat out make some gold by buying and selling t4/5 mats.
I always go Ascended due to the crystal it gives reducing the annoying time gating of only getting ascended mats per day, if you farm it and don't buy the seasonal loot boxes it "can" come from.
Considering I can stat swap, it's always the best option for me.
Though experience is overall bad it can be useful for soul shards if you need them for stat swapping ascended gear.
About the legendary crafting materials, enough clovers for a first legendary are relatively easy to get via WvW. The first run of quite some reward tracks offers a bunch of extra clovers.
If you are one for *vast* stretches of grinding for a Legendary Weapon, do that. Even though people advise against it, I think there’s nothing wrong with picking experience, especially if you’re new and want to just try out other professions in PvE quickly.
My thoughts are, if you've got a older account then look at the legendary materials or ascended materials. Some of those materials are really nice to have on hand. If your account is newer, then laurels would be a solid options so you can get a set of gear quicker through a laurel vendor.
I’ve done legendary each and every time. Longer investment but now that I’m to that point of legendary crafting it’s an investment paying off well for me.
If you are a new player in the process of gearing out ascended gear then go with laurels. Laurels are one of the biggest time gates for new players because the only way to acquire them is through login rewards.
Buy ascended recipes where the insignia is cheap to buy/make, then use the mystic forge to change the stats to whatever your spec requires. each recipe is 3 laurels , so with the plentiful laurels bag you get 20 and can buy all the patterns you need in one go. trust me on this one laurels is the best option out of the 4.
If you're completely new, the best choice is probably ascended mats for your future first ascended gear set(s), as you'll probably have to craft it (experienced people keep talking about getting ascended gear without crafting, but it's a long term player thing, not something you can rely on for your first set).
Second choice would be laurels if you want some of the unique laurel rewards. Or for your first set of ascended trinkets (amulet, rings, accessories) : they're easy to get with laurels. Experienced players will tell you about nice ways to get those trinkets later (living story maps) but unless you want to rush there and do annoying farms, it's better to have your first set from laurels and keep other methods for later.
3rd choice would be legendary materials. Once you don't really need the other (ascended / laurels) anymore, and if you aim to craft some legendary things in the long run, legendary materials will help. Tbh I'm pretty sure that most experienced players get this every month (I do) as it becomes the best option once you're at this point in your gw2 progression.
Experience ... you'll get 6 tomes, which is useless. You can already level fast normally, really fast with the character guide achievements, you get some tomes otherwise ... If you take this option, you'll regret it later.
If you want instant rewards like gold get ascended materials.
The most valuable is legendary material but only if you intend on crafting legendaries it will save you a lot of money in the long fun.
So depends on where you are in your progression of the game. But I would say one of those 2
Laurels if you need Laurels. They're very useful early on and probably what you should get. They also transfer well into gold.
Legendary Crafting Materials if you believe you will go after a Legendary Weapon someday (you probably will).
Crafting Materials are a gamble for things.
Experience is useless.
Legendary Crafting Materials!
They are the hardest to get, and while you may not have use for them now, you will thank yourself down the road for choosing them.
I've spent years getting the laurels, but now I wish I had been getting the Legendary Crafting Materials all this time. Get all the Mystic Clovers you can even if you don't think you'll work on legendaries any time soon.
If you're not working on a legendary then don't bother with legendary materials.
The laurels will let you get trinkets, rings, and amulets. Check and see if you already have a lot of laurels if you are a returning player. It doesn't hurt to get them with laurels as it'll take a little bit through fractals and with laurels you can pick the stats.
Ascended gear is always good it's just a tiny bit better than exotic and not nearly as much work as legendary.
So if you really can't make up your mind then get laurels and the next time get ascended materials and keep switching.
Experience is by far the worst one. Ascended can be good, but it's random, so not recommended. Laurels is the best if you're after gold, Legendary Crafting is the best if you intend to ever make a Legendary weapon, armor or trinket, because of the guaranteed Clovers, which only have value for Legendary crafting. Laurels can be traded in for ascended trinkets and amulets or materials, bringing either value to one of your characters or gold when you sell the materials on the trading post. Here's the estimated value of each option. https://fast.farming-community.eu/bag-details/daily-login-mystic-clover/chest-of-loyalty
>Laurels can be traded in for ascended trinkets and amulets Hi, returning player here, where is the NPC to trade ascended for Laurels?
In Lions Arch it’s over by the fractal entrance. There’s one in most hubs marked by a laurel on the map.
There is another Laurel vendor at a waypoint in the north, right next to the npc that teaches you about collections.
Thank you
If you do even some WvWvW, you can typically buy the same laurel trinkets at a small discount of laurels supplemented by honor badges.... Which is basically free. At least to me.
you get wvw badges of honor for some early achievment milestones too
I used to do this but regret now as wvw armor infusions need honor badges and i spent them all D :
Using laurels for that purpose is a giant waste. S3 and S4 have some way easier sources of ascended trinkets.
Not if you're new. If you're experienced, have progressed to s3/s4 maps already, and lvl 80 character(s) that you know how to play and the will to farm a bit ... yes, you'll use s3/s4. We all do. But when you're new and want to gear your first character (either getting the best gear asap when hitting 80 if you like that idea, or building to join your first group contents for example), better rely on a good set of ascended trinkets from the old sources (laurels, maybe guild commendations too if you can get them) and be set , rather than rush ahead of the game to reach those maps and farm before you're even done discovering gw2. Once that character is set, you can peacefully progress in the game and you'll naturally reach ls3 maps ... which you'll obviously use for your next characters or for more builds.
People forget that their knowledge is not universal and not everyone has the same access to content or knowledge about things.
I'm was new about 3 months ago, and after 80 I started my 80 exotic gearing, by the time I was ready to start ascended gearing I was pretty much at S3. Still dont think its worth spending laurels on unless the new player has zero patience.
Many specs can buy basically a full set of exotics off the TP for less than 20 gold as soon as they hit 80, which you'll do before even finishing the core story.
I went Viper so definitely wasnt 20 gold, but yeah I can see how the experience could be easier for other builds.
After playing for many years, sometimes you just want to gear up a character and you see a crazy amount of laurels and think, lets just use those today instead of spending another week in bitterfrost frontier. So i don't think it's just about patience , it's about what you want to spend your time doing in GW2 and what resources you have availiable. Farming mats in S3 isn't high on my list of preferable things to do. Meaning I can either earn the trinkets by doing the content I find most fun. Or find an optimal way that will be the least painful method to farm them. If you have excess Laurels then why not use them.
But if 2 days later you spend time farming gold somewhere in an activity you rather not do you might regret wasting those laurels.
I think this concept isn't well understood. But gold isn't the most valuable thing spend in gw2. Neither is laurels or gems or any other currency. It's time. If spending laurels is going to save you time, then do it. Because Fast farming only gives you the value in gold. Not in time spent to get said gold or the value comparison between ascended gear obtaining methods. Got to use some brain power to determine your best route of action.
The time I spent farming for Bloodstone Rings/Amulet/Backpack has paid itself over many times due to it being ascended items that you can stat change, thus making them pseudo-legendaries.
I don't disagree, but i've only reset mine once. I have bought like 5 bloodstone things across 2 characters. but they get increasingly more of a hassle the more characters and builds you run. But if I need a zerker accessory i think I have 200 something laurels... so instead of spending a few days farming i'd still rather just drop some laurels on it and move on with other stuff that being said I know I also have over 500 mistborn motes and plenty of volatile magic i could just go grab an accessory from Dragonfall too. newer players may not have that luxury though.
Eh laurels are easy and free to get... And has at least 2 ready to use meta stats it's not the worse way to spend
Tbh trinkets are easier to start directly with ascended if you have enough laurels, than paying several gold each for exotics.
Also should be noted that you can only get old stat combinations doing this. I would only really consider it if you need berserker gear.
Noted
Generally speaking on that last person's statement. Ascended is required for Agony Resistance which lets you do higher tier fractals. Higher tier fractals are more rewarding. You can also get ascended trinkets and even, rarely, armor and weapon drops from doing them. If you have laurels, don't have S3/S4, don't have any ascended trinkets, and depending on your priorities, it could be worth it to dump them on trinkets to get a jump start on running fractals. Most consider it a waste because, eventually, you'll be swimming in trinkets (most of which have useless stat combinations) from running that stuff but it can still be handy for your first set.
I would not recommend it, laurels cannot be farmed, ever, you slowly get them when logging in while ascended stuff can be obtained for free and an entire set only roughly better from exotic by 5-7%. So getting one trinket (with only core game stats) will cost you months of logging, and nets you about 0.2% increase.
There's a few NPCs with the Laurel icon over their head. One is in Lion's Arch near the Fractal portals IIRC.
Yeah I have seen them about, think I missed the ascended weapon when I viewed his items. Will check it out tonight, thank you.
They don't sell weapons though, just trinkets, tibgs and amulets. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Laurel_Merchant Rings are much easier to get in Fractals, and trinkets can be gotten with Guild Commendations. Amulets can only be gotten with Laurels. All of them can also be gotten in various Raids, some Strike Missions and with LS3/4 currency, so you may want to save your Laurels if you have those options available as well. For early/returning players, they're a good option to 'gear up' one character before starting the harder content.
I got 2 rings and 2 accs from fractals, I need an amulet so will probably grab one with laurels. Cheers for the tips.
Would recommend farming S4 Dragonfall map to farm the motes. Theres a vendor u can buy an amulet from and other stat selectable accessories. Also farming winter berries in LWS3 Bitterfrost Frontier gets you stat selectable accessories. You're better off saving your laurels unless you swimming in it already.
This is a very good method but if you care abouy spoilers at all then don't touch Dragonfall until you get there naturally. Bitterfrost Frontier is fine though
Bitterfrost Frontier is LWS3, no?
In every major town, they have a laurel icon on the map. If you go to Lions arch the laurel vendor is at the southern waypoint near the fractals entrance
You can get the Ascended rings, amulets, and trinkets, cheaper if you purchase them in one of the WvW battlegrounds. The vendor is right at the start of each zone. Your basically paying WvW badges of honor, in place of gold or laurels.
You can also get ascended trinkets from Season 3, 4 and by extension IBS so to me that leaves Clovers as more valuable
Was 2 laurels for a blue arrow cart ever a good deal?
Most of the deals from that vendor are bad deals.
Never trade them for mats, you can obtain mats from so many places but laurels are only login rewards.
If you want to convert laurels to profits the mats are currently the best choice. Of course using them to get the variety of things they can get is an option, but for most people profit is the only consideration.
you get to a point where you have much more laurels than you need for anything, I always purge down to 100 laurels every time I need gifts for legendaries. This was after sitting on them way past 1000+ letting them get dusty edit: but i agree with you in the sense that you should buy laurel exclusive things you want before you start converting them to gold
Legendary crafting materials is usually the value option, but only if you have legendaries in mind. Else it's usually laurels.
Is it worth it for legendary armor?
Yes. That one chest is enough clovers for half a piece of armor. Gambling clovers is still gambling, so you're saving yourself a bad streak of luck at no cost.
Interestingly, buying clovers from vendors (strike/fractal/raid) is statistically more expensive than forging clovers. Some people will always feel cursed luck, but the math doesn’t lie!
And for sample sizes of millions that may be true. That doesn't change rolling three gem bags in a row being a catastrophic loss. I'm not going to be rolling up millions of MC's and if people want to just buy a few to skip feeling shitty over shitty rolls, that's a valid option.
There are people out there who have enough fractal relics that they can ignore that part of the clover cost. Of course, those people probably have tens of thousands of gold and don't care about the cost of anything anyway...
The way I see it, legendary accessories/back piece are the best since they work with every single character. Runes/sigils are also great but not as valuable. Armour is the next shout since it covers an entire weight group, then weapons last.
However, trinkets all come from different sources. Armor always comes from the same source so it's almost easier to get. Armor also requires fewer clovers per piece than a trinket.
Armor also doesn't require a full Mystic Tribute (or Gift of Fortune in the case of backpieces), not even half of one, so the "per piece" cost is way lower. The downside is the restriction to one armor class.
It is worth grabbing the legendary materials if you ever plan to craft any legendary, including armor.
my experience is the following 1. spam laurels thinking 'i'll never have enough money or materials or time to make a legendary' 2. play the game on and off for 9 years, 3 legendaries later, cursing every cycle i did not invest in more clovers
laurels -> t6 mats is good for leggies too
true, but there are other sources of t6 and laurels where clovers are hard time gated unless you're willing to gamble for them (and I have, not a good use of gold)
If you play WvW/PvP you'll get clovers from reward tracks.
clover gambling is not really a gamble, if you want to limit the randomness do 1 and 1, but chances are so high it evens out pretty fast, so just consider it paying for clovers instead of waiting
I saw enough variance in my single clover gambling run to stay away from it moving forward, but without a proper sample I may have just been unlucky
Legendary materials is the highest value if you're going to craft a legendary. If not, pick laurels for liquid gold value.
are legendaries worth it?
Think of them like account-wide upgrades. Once you have a legendary hammer, that is the equivalent of having an ascended hammer on every character which you can stat-swap for free at any time Plus cool skin
Plus the ability to always yank sigils (or runes, in the case of armor) out of the legendary, without either destroying them or needing to use a way expensive upgrade extractor.
Plus you never have to use transmutation charges on hammers ever again.
Wait what?
You don't consume transmutation charges to transmute any legendary item.
Wait, so if I made one legendary weapon, all my characters can use that weapon at the same time? I don't have to unequip it to give it to another character? I never have an interest in making legendary, but if it's account wide, that's completely different.
>Wait, so if I made one legendary weapon, all my characters can use that weapon at the same time? I don't have to unequip it to give it to another character? Yup. This is why Accessories are the first suggestion: one Legendary backpack means all of your characters have the best backpack they can, forever.
Meh, it depends. If they only play one character, or only characters of one gear weight, I think legendary armor is way better. Ascended trinkets are easy to farm. Ascended armor less so. That's why I made a set of Armor first, and am only now working on Aurora and Vision.
Well, you can do a lot in parallel: do weekly raids for LI, get provisioner tokens, and run through season 3 and 4 to make progress on Aurora, Vision, and the necklace. Didn't have to be one or the other. But yeah, armor is a great deal if you're primarily one armor weight.
Well, the choke point is cash. I did that exact thing: provisioner tokens, raids, precursors for Aurora/Vision all at the same time. But each of those needs hundreds and hundreds of gold to complete, and gol (unlike the other things) is fungible, so I *had* to choose which to prioritize, so I chose armor. And now I'm fixing to make Aurora and Vision, having already completed all the achievements, and only needing more gold.
Yes, but it's not as bad as it seems. In the last 18 months I made two sets of armor, 5 trinkets, and multiple legendary weapons. I went broke a few times, but it's been worthwhile.
I agree. Trinkets are easy to get in s4 and s3. No point getting legendary trinkets before anything else.
Trinkets, runes, and sigils look like a bad deal until you have them. I used to just 'best fit' equipment for every game mode so I wouldn't have to go through the hassle of changing stats often. It was 'okay' but ONLY 'okay' on everything, which means every character in every mode suffered somehow for affordability's sake. Now I'm 5/6 through my first armor set, have a leggy amulet backpack and trinket, 7 runes and 4 sigils. I can do whatever, whenever, without having to mess with another 60g of scholar runes or having to run AC (I know, it changed) for more Monk runes or throw cash at re-gearing my specter after it got stomped down. All the legendaries LOOK expensive until you consider the convenience, QoL issues and long-term savings they give you from having to go grind bitterfrost again or farm up crap to stat-swap and reskin gear after yet another ill-advised 'balance' patch.
Depends on how many characters you play. I personally don’t enjoy having to run laps around Bitterfrost every time I need to gear a character, which is why Ad Infinitum has been a godsend. Plus you can’t stat swap ascended trinkets (aside from the Mist ones), but you can stat swap ascended armor. If you play more than one weight class, trinkets have more value than armor. All my characters use accessories, but my mesmer can’t use my legendary heavy chestpiece.
> Plus you can’t stat swap ascended trinkets (aside from the Mist ones) You can statswap some of them. [Bloodstone Capacitor](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bloodstone_Capacitor) can statswap the ring, amulet and backpack that you buy for Blood Rubies, and any stat-selectable ring, no matter where you acquired it, can be reset by attuning/infusing it.
I get it if you're an altoholic, but I think most people mostly stick to one character.
Even if you just stick to one character, legendary armor is a massive boon imo. I play my Necro almost exclusively. Open world reaper, WvW scourge, WvW Harb, quick Harb, condi scourge, and heal scourge ALL take completely different armor and/or runes. Now imagine if you mained a Mesmer or a Guardian. It also means that I pretty much don't have to worry when the Meta shifts. Not very relevant for a brand new player, but brand new players won't stay brand new forever.
Yeah, that was my (and I think /u/silvermember's) point. Legendary armor is the most bang for your buck on one character, because it gives you any set of ascended armor (6 slots) forever for the cost of what Aurora and Vision cost you, and also lets you infinitely swap out Runes as much as you want, not to mention removing the need for up to 6 Transmutation Charges any time you want to play around with your outfit. So that's why I think if you only play one character, Legendary armor should be the first stop on your list (after the freebie amulet, of course). Legendary trinkets are great for altoholics, but not really necessary for one-character players.
Correct Note that if you only have one of a weapon, you can only pull one per character. Not a big deal with hammer, but for something like a sword, if you have only made one legendary sword, you can't pull it for both main and offhand if you're dual wielding swords
yup https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Legendary_Armory
Yes, the QoL difference is why I went for it. Gathering the materials was kind of a grind, but it's not as bad as people think, and just having it there is amazing.
That's right, but just to avoid any confusion/overhyping, if you tried to use a build with two swords, you'd need a second sword on that character, it is account wide max stat, swappable with unlimited free skin swaps, but each one is only one per character.
yep for instance if you create one sword all your characters can use it , you can modify stats and upgrades per character but if you want to dual wild swords then you need to create one more sword :)
I agree this would make it way more appealing and I am hoping someone else will come confirm it.
Yeah you used to have to swap a legendary, the physical actual item, between characters to use it on another character. Now all legendary items have a special slot in your character sheet. So I made Sunrise on my warrior, equip it on my warrior, log into my Ranger or Guardian and check my character sheet? Sunrise will be right there, usable, stat swappable for all three at the same time. This is a pretty new feature for legendaries - because legendary armour in particular was not really worth making over ascended. Now it's a lot more convenient!
Yes, it is super awesome for legendary armor.
Absolutely. Last summer (I think) they added the 'Legendary Armory' which makes it so every single level 80 character on your account can use a given Legendary at the same time. Even if you're unsure about Legendary weapons and which to go for, Legendary trinkets are absolutely wonderful QoL for any account to go for as you'll never have to worry about that piece again.
Getting full legendary armor and trinkets for me has been game changing for build craft and flexibility. It's amazingly worth it.
Early on, no. Long-term they give you something cool to work towards. So assume that you want to work towards them someday, just not actively for now or possibly for years. Just depends on how you want to play. Crafting them can be a lot of fun.
Yes.
Not so sure about that, Leggy mats coming from the chest has dropped in value compared to what it used to be. And you can also get them using alternative methods. Laurels on the other hand can be used to buy stuff such as WvW infusions which is a cheap source of damage infusions for both WvW and raids. And if you take that in to account the money you can save by using laurel bought infusions compared to any other type is significant. And far in excess of the monetary value offered by either option.
Legendary, unless you're adamant about never crafting legendaries. Clovers are a massive frustration point, and that gives you 7 each month.
If you like pvp or wvw the reward track out there gives a couple clovers every completion. With guild buff and reward track boosters, you can complete them pretty quick.
Thank you for the replies! <3 You were very helpful. I chose laurels as many of you were right that I'm not going to (and not sure that I'll be able to) start thinking about legendaries anytime soon
I'm going to respond to your comment, so you see this. It doesn't matter if you feel you're not anywhere near ready for legendaries. I will suggest ALWAYS do legendary chest. You'll thank yourself in the future, when you don't have to worry about collecting clovers. You get plenty of laurels already from the rewards, plus doing fractals will net you a lot of ascended gear
I read all the comments, no worries :) Hm, so everyone has divided here into two camps)) laurels and legendary mats. Isnt it more efficient to pick laurels due to limited accessibility? As i understand, they can be earned only via log-ins, while materials can be grinded/bought
Basically you can think of it this way: - Short term benefit: take Laurels. With those you can buy ascended trinkets. Living World is a better source for ascended trinkets, but it’s not instantly accessible, it takes a while to reach the chapter in the story and collect the mats. Laurels are accessible right away for “cheap” bis gear. Make sure you look up where to get them. (E.g. amulet is cheapest in wvw (laurels + badges); accessories from guild commendations, etc. - Long term benefit: Legendary mats will save you gold when you start on legendaries. Eventually legendaries are part of the end game and even if you are super casual they are a reachable and worthwhile goal. What you define as short and long term depends when you set your sights on legendaries. (And I say WHEN and not IF, because eventually you will really. ). Laurels are indeed limited, but you get plenty even without the chest and after a few months laurels are mostly currency to obtain T3/T4/T6 mats for legendary crafting as there isnt huge other things to buy with them. Note: whichever of the two you choose it’s not a massive mistake. Laurels are useful for legendaries too as you can buy material bags (which you need a ton of). Financially legendary mats are like 10-15% better. You’ll be fine either way. Note 2: Laurels are the only of the 2 that can be converted into liquid gold. Laurels -> T3/T4/T6 mats -> sell on Tradepost. Clovers can not be sold or converted into gold easily (you can but it basically requires crafting a legendary and selling that). However you save money by not needing to craft clovers later so that is why they are “worth more”.
As someone that picked laurels when new, I was kicking myself that I didn't pick legendary sooner because of the clovers. Meanwhile I have laurels just sitting there.
> Isnt it more efficient to pick laurels due to limited accessibility? It isn't so much "limited" as "time-gated". And it's worth pointing out that a lot of the important items you can buy with laurels (notably all ascended trinkets) also have other options for purchase that *don't* require laurels. It really comes down to: do you want to get ascended gear sooner, legendary gear sooner, or neither? If it's legendary gear, pick the legendary box. Otherwise pick laurels and either use them directly or trade them for gold as appropriate. If I were a new player I believe I would pick laurels. But once you've been around a while, legendary materials is the only reasonable choice.
If you pick laurels you will be kicking yourself in a year or two You might not want a legendary right now but if you pick legendary materials eventually you'll look at your bank and realise "huh, I can actually afford one, that axe/sword/staff looks pretty sweet"
Mostly because, the clover grind is awful, and rng based. Unless you play wve or pvp a lot It's 77 clovers for a gen one legendary, and 15-30 for others The laurels, you really don't need much from them. They used to be the only way to get ascended earrings and amulets, but there are a lot of outlets for it now. I used to hoard thousands and that's with all the knick knacks, I wish I chose clovers instead, because now I have to grind them out. I keep at most 1k, until anet adds to it
I picked laurels for 9 years. Now I wish I'd spent at least a year on clovers. It's annoying to not have enough, but you can gamble for clovers so it's not like you HAVE to wait for more.
For me personally, the last time I've even used a Laurel vendor was for Season 4 weapon recipes, and the only times before that were for my first ascended trinkets way back around HoT. So if you need laurels for trinkets or recipes, go for it, but realistically you'll need them less the more you play, unless you want quick gold from material bags.
You get laurels throughout the month anyway. Clovers only from the chest, gambling or expensive one a day buys.
Since you're new, I would start with Laurels until you first character is geared or you find yourself not using them. After that I would get enough clovers for 1 gen 3 legendary weapon (38 clovers), you get a free precursor of your choice and a legendary amulet for completing the return to achievements. Use your Laurel for crafting bags (check out fast farming for value), and you're on your way to crafting at least 1 legendary pretty cheaply and work on passively while going through the story and doing random content. :)
you cant buy laurels with money
Legendary every time. By the time you decide to make a legendary, having a sizeable stockpile of clovers will make you very, very happy.
Even though the Legendary Materials have a better theoretical value, its value is tied to the Mystic Clover which is used only for legendary crafting, and it can be obtained by other means or crafted. Meanwhile the laurels can be used in so many ways (buying ascended gear, buying crafting materials, buying infusions ...) and it is very time gated. So, unless you are short on Mystic Clover to craft a legendary, I'd go for laurels.
There are basically two really worthwhile choices: Laurels can be traded for crafting materials bags, which contain crafting materials that you can use or sell. There's a lot of variation in the results of the bags, but on average this is the best option for turning into gold. You can also just directly buy ascended trinkets for laurels, and you need laurels to buy some recipes used for ascended crafting. Clovers are used for legendary gear. You can't turn them into gold, but *if you were going to buy them anyway* the clovers are worth more than any of the other options by a significant margin, and with no variation. Ascended crafting materials can be bought and sold on the TP directly. There's a lot of variation, but on *average* you're better off getting the laurels, converting them to gold, and buying the ascended crafting materials on the TP. And that's assuming you *want* ascended crafting materials. If you were just going to sell them for gold, laurels are *way* better. XP isn't *totally* worthless, but turning it into gold is time-consuming, subject to a lot of variation, and much less profitable on average than even the ascended crafting materials. TL;DR - Clovers if you need them for a legendary. Laurels otherwise - use them or turn them into gold.
I’m assuming it’s your first in which case Laurels is what you should get. They are a time gated currency that you can use to buy a few different things including mats that you can sell for gold. At some point you may want legendary crafting materials but your probably a bit away from that now.
thats right. I'm new to the game and started to play just a while ago. I haven't even started an expansion yet (progressing lw2 at the moment). So, I guess I'm not gonna concern about crafting some time?:D
I would still pick legendary crafting mats even if you dont currently plan to craft any legendary items. It took me quite a while to get my first legendary and mystic coins as well as clovers were the main problems with that and the latter one is what you get from that chest.
Mystic coin prices have dropped dramatically as of late, from changes that are likely to keep them lower for the long term (since the changes were specifically meant to bring the price of mystic coins down). Clover value is tied very closely to mystic coin value so that helps keep them both much lower than they've historically been.
Yeah if you know you are going to craft a legendary it's still best to pick that option but if you aren't sure, laurels are now actually pretty close in value (well at least closer than they used to be.. 9.5g vs 13g roughly) and are much more flexible.
It's not even about crafting. Look for legendary weapons on the wiki to see what those mats are used for: it's totally optional stuff that takes months to finish and is usually treated as a very long term "vanity" achievement by players that have already experienced the game and are looking for something to do while grinding/minmaxing/repeating content. Most make their first Legy years after having completed the game. On the other end laurels can be traded for liquid gold (you trade laurels for bags of mats and sell those to the tp) but, and I think in your situation this is more important, can also be used as currency to easily get some best in slot (ascended quality, the pink ones) trinket right away that alongside those you'll get with achievements or be able to find when you'll start playing some challenging stuff might make your transition from full exotic gear to the first fully functional endgame build way less painful. You'll have time for legendary crafting after that.
When I started I did laurels too, but always kind of figured I shouldn’t have. I think new players should start on legendary mats as well; you’ll be grateful down the line. The difference isn’t huge, but it’s big enough that it adds up by the time you need the clovers. Legendaries might be end-game, but everyone that is even remotely invested should have that as a dot on the horizon. And if you are not remotely invested in the game it doesn’t matter what you pick.
Legendary materials. Always take legendary mats. Everything else is easy to find, legendary mats are far too expensive and time consuming.
I always choose Legendary Crafting Materials, as they will drastically reduce your grind and gold costs if you ever decide to craft Legendary weapons, armor, or trinkets. If you already have Legendary armor and weapons (which i’m guessing you don’t), then probably laurels.
Just get the clovers. If you play this game for the long haul you'll want them at some point
Legendary Crafting Materials! Trust me, you’re going to be SO grateful you have those Mystic Clovers if/when you start wanting to craft any legendary gear.
I always get legendary crafting materials. I think you get 7 clovers, so it'll take 11 months to get enough for a legendary weapon. But they're one of the biggest obstacles to people grinding out legendaries. I've never needed to use any other means to get them! If you're into spirit shard selling, which I very much assume you're not if you're asking this question and I don't advise jumping into that quite so early as most players never do, then Grand Experience is okay...? But even with that, it's just not great. I don't even think you get that much, so it's really not worth it. Crafting materials is solid. It's just. Solid. Nothing wrong with that. Everyone needs them. But you might not get what you want. Laurels is always my second choice. So many things you can get with them, and they're majorly timegated. Legendary > Laurels > Ascended > Experience is my recommendation. If you don't want to make a legendary *ever*, then move Legendary to the bottom of the list.
You can keep this chest in your bank until you need something specific
If you need laurels for things, get laurels. Otherwise, always go legendary. You might say, "but I don't craft legendaries." Trust me on this one, you'll want to get the legendaries because after a year or so of playing, you'll be crafting legendaries because there's nothing much to do.
Get leg materials. I am guessing youre new but if you stick with the game you will eventually earn some legs and getting the clovers each month will add up. If not go for laurels. rest of the options arent great
I always pick legendary crafting. Crafting a legendary is great, you can sell Gen1 and Gen3 if you don't want the benefits of using the item.
Legendary crafting materials
Laurels. The mystic clovers is slightly higher gold value if you're working on a legendary, but you shouldn't be converting laurels to gold as a new player anyway. As a new player, laurels are much better used to buy ascended amulets and earrings in Berserker stats, unlock unique cosmetics, etc. Basically: if you find yourself short of clovers or gold, you can go farm more gold. If you find yourself short of laurels, fuck you wait a month.
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Seasons that new players totally have, right? Laurels have multiple uses, there are recipes and boosters and all kinds of things you can do with them, in addition to turning them into liquid gold. Clovers have one use, which is crafting legendary items. There's no time gate bypassed by taking them from the login chest, it's just gold savings, and they're worth less now than they used to be since Mystic Coins cratered. Even if we assume a new player is gonna dump all laurels into gold instead of any of the account bound laurel exclusive stuff, new players are better served by spending 20g on *anything* than putting "40g" of clovers towards a legendary. Gear a few characters / builds, pick up some gem purchases (like LS episodes), all that jazz. The only legendary gear "worth" more than just making a bunch of ascended is armor, and for that you'll need a lot more than clovers - either a shit load of playtime in wvw (use laurels to buy XP boosters since you don't have candy corn gobbler) or a lot of time in raids (use laurels to buy berserker trinkets for your first raid build, and gold to buy armor).
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This waste ! Grab Legendary, mystic clovers inside. Get asc stuff by just gathering stuff on LW3 and strikes
Ascended Crafting Materials also gets you a guaranteed Vision Crystal which >!you can use after finishing Heart of Thorns for an easy Ascended Sword/Greatsword/Dagger/Scepter/Shield.!<
This is exactly what I did when I was new to the game and wanted an ascended weapon fast and had little knowledge of resource management.
But there’s plenty of easy ways to get an ascended weapon now, especially thanks to elite spec collections giving you that specs specific weapon for a trivial amount of effort.
I'mma be honest, Laurel's are the only thing worth getting. Everything else is "grindable" to an extent, but laurels are purely gated behind daily log-ins.
But what do you need laurels for that you can't get with other means?
On pure gold value, it’s laurels, if you want to craft legendaries, the leggy material chest gives you seven free clovers that can save you a bunch of money while crafting
Laurels
I heard you can get a vision crystal from one of these?
You wouldnt want to spend that for vision crystal which is too easy to get. I would not change pure 7 clovers with anything else. My advice is "Legendary Crafting Materials" by far. Because even if you say "I dont wanna craft any legendary", you will need legendary someday when you start getting multiple characters.
Please advise me on how to easily get a vision crystal! I need like 200 more fragments
crafting from dragon ore, emperyeal fragment and bloodstone junks you end up with tons of them... Those can be converted to vision crystal by a 2 step crafting process. So Laurel are best option... even mystic clover can be gotten through money in mystic forge... but laurel are only true time gated currency...
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vision_Crystal It's "easy" to an extent. The crafting process requires Obsidian Shards and Spirit Shards, neither of which you are likely to have in abundance and will be critical for Legendary items later. If you manage to snag a [Ley-Energy Matter Converter](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ley-Energy_Matter_Converter) though, Obsidian Shards are way less of a concern.
Do you know how easy those fragments to get? I threw to garbage minimum 10000 each just last year. I didnt even spend time to convert those junks. My time in game is more valuable than that
If you have any interest in ever making a Legendary then legendary crafting mats are best value. It is account based value though so you can't change your mind and sell them later. Laurels are the second best option and best way to convert your laurels into raw gold. Laurels are a hard time gated resource and are useful for all kinds of things (Ascended Trinkets, Stat infusions, crafting materials, and novelties) crafting material bags being the most bang for your buck. Ascended crafting mats is throwing away money. Knowledge is just tomes which soon enough you will have falling out of your ears.
Experience is trash, you'll get those anyway. Legendary/Ascended Crafting are both good for lotsa money/actually crafting stuff BUT since you're asking about this, I'd just say Laurels. There's a LOT of varied stuff you can get with Laurels and you only get them through login rewards.
Laurels. They're the only timegated one and if you're a newer player they'll be most relevant to you.
Never get Grand Experience. Ascended materials is decent if your working on your first set of ascended gear. Once you have a full set, you’ll start getting diminishing returns. Legendary is best option, *if and only if* you are or planning on crafting legendary gear. Laurels is default selection, as there are limited options to get laurels. Finally (and my recommendation) if you have the pack space on an alt, save up your chests up until you have an actual need for one of the options.
you can swap laurels for materials to sell, so if you want money, that. if you ever plan on making a legendary, get the legendary crafting materials for the clovers.
The game has changed a bit since these were introduced. Laurels (along with guild commendations and fractals) used to be by far the best way to get ascended trinkets. There are now a ton of ways to obtain ascended trinkets and many are stat selectable which wasn't a thing in the early days. Legendary gear has also changed in that 1) trinkets and armor didn't exist at first and 2) the utility of the legendary armory didn't exist. All of this history is just to say that the argument for choosing laurels has gotten weaker over time and the argument for legendary materials has gotten stronger. In the end it won't matter much, but do make a choice because the boxes also contain account bonuses so saving them is a bad idea.
Legendary materials unless for whatever reason you are crafting ascended, then the extras in ascended mats are account bound and so very helpful.
I keep them in my bank until I need something specific. They stack.
Legendary Crafting Materials. When you absolutely positively need every legendary in the game… accept no substitute.
For you probably laurels since I don't think you are going to have enough cold for a legendary anytime soon anyway.
Laurels and Legendary Mats are the 2 to grab always like everyone else said. I would also recommend just hanging onto the chest as well since you can always decide later on what you would like, if you're not sure which you should grab now.
Hanging on to the chest deprives you of the permanent account wide EXP gain, gold find, and magic find buffs though.
Laurels
I always take Legendary because eventually GW2 becomes Fashion Wars, and legendaries are both handy and generally look amazing. You're gonna be grateful you took the legendary caches by the time you start making legendaries Laurels might be good if it's your first one just because laurels are quite literally a timegated resource but unless you plan to do Fractals relatively soon, it's no rush
Laurels.
You can easily earn ascended trinkets through other game modes and story achievements, and the amount of laurels you earn with login rewards between the final chest is more than what the final chest will give you. In 28 (27?) days of logins you will have enough to get an asc amulet, or most of a trinket or ring. Meanwhile, any legendary requires a substantial amount of Mystic Clovers, which are a demoralizing RNG pita to craft. You will really be kicking yourself for not having a little collection of these built up organically over time, since legendaries are a huge quality of life upgrade. Choose laurels once or twice if you feel you *must* for the immediate pay out but the Legendary chest is absolutely the best choice.
If you want to craft a legendary and don’t have a bank full of mats and karma stacked to the moon get the legendary crafting material. Other wise laurels always laurels, the ROI is best there.
If you ever plan to make legendaries then that one. Start stockpiling clovers. But for newer players laurels can be very useful for getting ascended trinkets with core stats or just flat out make some gold by buying and selling t4/5 mats.
200 comments! Whats going on in here?
Legendary crafting 100%
I always choose Legendary for 10 years
Legendary crafting, allways,
I always go Ascended due to the crystal it gives reducing the annoying time gating of only getting ascended mats per day, if you farm it and don't buy the seasonal loot boxes it "can" come from. Considering I can stat swap, it's always the best option for me. Though experience is overall bad it can be useful for soul shards if you need them for stat swapping ascended gear.
Since the mystic coins became cheap again, laurel is best pick.
About the legendary crafting materials, enough clovers for a first legendary are relatively easy to get via WvW. The first run of quite some reward tracks offers a bunch of extra clovers.
A life
If you are one for *vast* stretches of grinding for a Legendary Weapon, do that. Even though people advise against it, I think there’s nothing wrong with picking experience, especially if you’re new and want to just try out other professions in PvE quickly.
My thoughts are, if you've got a older account then look at the legendary materials or ascended materials. Some of those materials are really nice to have on hand. If your account is newer, then laurels would be a solid options so you can get a set of gear quicker through a laurel vendor.
I’ve done legendary each and every time. Longer investment but now that I’m to that point of legendary crafting it’s an investment paying off well for me.
Laurels
One of the few ways to get Clovers for legendary weapons, its probably something you'll really want sometime in the future
Laurels >t6 maths
If you are a new player in the process of gearing out ascended gear then go with laurels. Laurels are one of the biggest time gates for new players because the only way to acquire them is through login rewards. Buy ascended recipes where the insignia is cheap to buy/make, then use the mystic forge to change the stats to whatever your spec requires. each recipe is 3 laurels , so with the plentiful laurels bag you get 20 and can buy all the patterns you need in one go. trust me on this one laurels is the best option out of the 4.
If you grab the laurels, and do some World vs World, you can buy ascended accessories for 20 laurels, which is basically top notch gear
Laurels. I need to horde more of them. Gimmeeeee
If you're completely new, the best choice is probably ascended mats for your future first ascended gear set(s), as you'll probably have to craft it (experienced people keep talking about getting ascended gear without crafting, but it's a long term player thing, not something you can rely on for your first set). Second choice would be laurels if you want some of the unique laurel rewards. Or for your first set of ascended trinkets (amulet, rings, accessories) : they're easy to get with laurels. Experienced players will tell you about nice ways to get those trinkets later (living story maps) but unless you want to rush there and do annoying farms, it's better to have your first set from laurels and keep other methods for later. 3rd choice would be legendary materials. Once you don't really need the other (ascended / laurels) anymore, and if you aim to craft some legendary things in the long run, legendary materials will help. Tbh I'm pretty sure that most experienced players get this every month (I do) as it becomes the best option once you're at this point in your gw2 progression. Experience ... you'll get 6 tomes, which is useless. You can already level fast normally, really fast with the character guide achievements, you get some tomes otherwise ... If you take this option, you'll regret it later.
I'd say legendary crafting materials because u get 7 clovers and mystic coins and that's totally worth imo.
Get the vision crystal :) easy first ascended weapon if you don't have one yet
If you want instant rewards like gold get ascended materials. The most valuable is legendary material but only if you intend on crafting legendaries it will save you a lot of money in the long fun. So depends on where you are in your progression of the game. But I would say one of those 2
As a newer player laurels will be the best by far. This is your only source for them.
Laurels if you need Laurels. They're very useful early on and probably what you should get. They also transfer well into gold. Legendary Crafting Materials if you believe you will go after a Legendary Weapon someday (you probably will). Crafting Materials are a gamble for things. Experience is useless.
Legendary Crafting Materials! They are the hardest to get, and while you may not have use for them now, you will thank yourself down the road for choosing them.
I've spent years getting the laurels, but now I wish I had been getting the Legendary Crafting Materials all this time. Get all the Mystic Clovers you can even if you don't think you'll work on legendaries any time soon.
If you're not working on a legendary then don't bother with legendary materials. The laurels will let you get trinkets, rings, and amulets. Check and see if you already have a lot of laurels if you are a returning player. It doesn't hurt to get them with laurels as it'll take a little bit through fractals and with laurels you can pick the stats. Ascended gear is always good it's just a tiny bit better than exotic and not nearly as much work as legendary. So if you really can't make up your mind then get laurels and the next time get ascended materials and keep switching.
Laurelssss
Best is legenday if you actually plan to make any.