The Fragile Dragons

'Always winning by accident', the current guild motto, is as good a place as any to begin.

You see, I had no intention on making a legendary weapon.

Some time ago I reviewed an engineer's options for a legendary rifle, pistol, shield or harpoon gun and was not wowed in any way.


To me the effects on these all seemed pretty blah compared to something like the dreamer, a longbow that shoots rainbow unicorn arrows.

On the practical side, the stats on legendaries are the same as on easily acquired ascended weapons.

Also the most practical engineer trait and talent specs use an engineer's bomb, grenade or flame thrower kits.

For this reason I equip an engineer's kit 90% of the time. Since my kits replace my weapons, including a legendary weapon, I would rarely see the legendary or its effects.

Rumours of new crafted legendaries and all I imagined an engineer specific legendary would become also deflected the desire for one of the current legendary weapons.

Then there's the clear time sink and grind for vast quantities of T6 materials and gold.

I lacked the incentive and was sure I wanted no part in acquiring a legendary weapon.

For two months after I made that choice, I happily went about my in-game business. I completed every living story achievement and kill many mobs.

At one point, I sold every crafting mat I had in inventory and spent every copper I owned when the gem store sold bank tabs and bag slots at a modest discount, even though I never felt I needed the space.

I also tried converting karma into gold when I spent half a million karma on gear from a karma vendor in Orr so I could convert the soul bound items into non-soul bound items at the random number generator known as the mystic forge. As expected, the return on investment was awful.

One late June night, Jim Shapiro had just logged for the night leaving Drakhen, Eliana Moonhaven and I online just as Jormag landed in Frostgorge. Until that night, I had only killed Jormag once before so was keen on staying online a bit later than normal.

For the uninitiated, Jormag's a long fight made longer at close to midnight when many players pay less attention to the encounter and focus more on what happens after.

On this night the dragon dies, I loot and am pleasantly surprised; I got an exotic! It's the second exotic I've ever received from a boss.

Drakhen and Eliana Moonhaven link their rare quality loot in guild chat. Since I've rarely have anything to report and since I'm already excited I link the item I got.

The guild chat then erupted with a flurry of messages like omg...did that just drop for you?...you're so lucky...and so on.

I'm a bit bewildered at the response as I saw the exotic as similar to other exotic item I have equipped. I won the lottery as Drakhen explains 'Jormag's Breath' sells for 130 gold on the trading post.

In that one instant, I easily had ten times more gold than I ever had at one time.

A short time later the consequences of this amount of gold materialized.

I entertained many thoughts but the one I always circled back to was how an impossible proposition became only half as improbable as it once was as the chaos gun, the Quip precursor, sells for 230 gold.

I decided I liked the Quip pistol the most of my choices even as for many others the ever-present daisies or the flying coloured streamers and confetti left the impression its a gun only a clown could love. A joke weapon as another described it.

As a few know, I have an interest in stock trading and in particular the psychological aspects of trading most commonly described as the fear of loss and the greed in missing out. A good read, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, is the story of accomplished trader Jessie Livermore who made and lost many fortunes in his lifetime.

The framework I use so the odds are a bit more in my favour include a focus on reducing the loss potential as the reward opportunities take care of themselves. A good speculation involves estimating potential risk to reward so that I take one unit of risk for three units of potential profit.

There's always an opportunity somewhere and in GW2 each living story chapter can cause game economy disruptions. by its nature, time limited access to certain content produces certain game items during that period in time.

I buy limited time items during the living story when supply is high and selling those items after this chapter of the living story's done.  Since players cannot get this item as a drops anymore, they but must buy them on trading post. Price equilibrium rises as players consume items which cuts potential supply.

During the Dragon Bash chapter of living story, players produced and spent gobs of zhaitaffy to acquire certain achievements and various items including buff foods.

Players should value equally a food buff whether purchased with zhaitaffy or crafted. A player then could calculate the zhaitaffy to gold exchange rate for each buff. As the event wore on and players completed their zhaitaffy related achievements and bought zhaitaffy related items, many found they had more zhaitaffy than they wanted and sold their excess on the trading post which predictably pushed depressed zhaitaffy prices.

As an example, this depressed the cost of magic find food bought with zhaitaffy to cost 25% of the equivalent crafted versions.

At one unit of risk to four units of reward, I bought as much zhaitaffy as I wanted and converted it into magic find food. As I stored the food on a bank character I realized I didn't account for another risk. I knew I could be in for a long wait before the exchange rate on the food equalized but I never considered the risk of using the magic find food myself before I could sell it. Fortunately I didn't have too much temptation or wait as the next living story let players use zhaitaffy as currency for crafting patterns. This caused a tripling in the price of zhaitaffy the day the patch hit the server which also caused a tripling in the price of the zhaitaffy exchanged food.

In a later speculation I acquired a bank tab full of black lion chests expecting an Evon Gnashblade victory.  Evon lost and the demand for black lion chests never materialize but since I followed the Jim Shapiro rules to trading I bought at the bid and sold at the ask. In the end, I sold the chests at a loss less than the cost of commission.

I'm on a cured thick leather speculation and will let you know how that goes. Although curiously the prices of many of the other leathers used in the ascended crafted leather have already risen to a higher price level.

By now you've probably figured out I didn't make a lot of gold on these speculations. You're right but I sure had fun trying. Like most of us, I say I like taking risks but I suspect a more accurate description of what most want is a certain outcome with moments where the outcome is in doubt. After all no one takes a risk hoping they will lose.

If you're made it this far and are wondering, I made my gold for Quip the old-fashioned way, I earned it. I've always wanted to use this line as these old TV advertisements crack me up.

Day and night, I grinded mobs and events and farmed resources.

At about that time I started my grind, Arena net added a guaranteed piece of rare loot as incentive so more players would kill world bosses.

As this became one of the better ways for getting ectos, I set up a process where I watched three separate boss timer websites so I could best take part but because the bosses died so quickly, I missed some.

Then I clued in a bit and noticed this one commander did a better job at timing than I did. I believe this was because this commander had more experience at timing than I did but it was also because several players followed this commander around that the commander could progress the pre events and could trigger the world boss if there was some down time.

So I added this commander and a few others to my friend list so I could watch their locations during the evenings as I watched the boss timers.

I was not the only that noticed this commander was good at timing. Other players would tease this commander in map chat by encouraging other at the event to DPS and kill the boss quickly before this commander could arrive.

Some saw this showing up moments before a boss died to damage the boss enough for loot credit as immoral but I saw it as time efficient. This helped me net 5 gold a night and sometimes 10 gold if I got a decent exotic.

I also did Yumi Scruumi's Dredgehaunt Cliffs seasoned wood run a few times a night. Since seasoned wood re-spawned on an hourly basis, I could farm it almost as much as I wanted and could convert it through the trading post into the other wood required for the gift of wood.

The Skelk on the north-east shore of Southsun also dropped T6 and T5 materials.

This rotation went on for about a month and a half before I had all the components, including the precursor.

I then decided I would wait a bit. If legendary crafted weapons were around the corner, I could use the components I've gathered for quip towards one of the potential legendaries.

Without the goal of acquiring materials for a legendary, I stopped farming.

I also saw other options I could try while I waited.

In one case, I flipped ectos from my future legendary into gold on the trading post with the hope I could buy them back at a cheaper price.

I also bought a commander tag and the gem store permanent mining pick and salvage items.

The 160 gold I spend on these items came from the 100 gold saved for the icy rune stones and the gold for the legendary gifts recipes.

The wait and siting on the components for the legendary was more difficult than I thought. Since I felt indebted again and because I'm uncomfortable with that feeling, I crafted the legendary at my next opportunity. Simple advice on debt

Thankfully, Arena net introduced a new and better gold farm in the Crown Pavilion and Scarlet's Aetherblade Invasion event.