Should I Buy Zap on the Trading Post or Complete The Collection?

According to GW2BLTC, Zap costs 502 gold on the TP with a buy order and is 410 gold if crafted. My question is that is the collection worth doing to save the 90 gold or am I better off just farming extra?

Did you factor in the cost of completing the collection? They're not exactly free either.

@Oglaf.1074 said:Did you factor in the cost of completing the collection? They're not exactly free either.

I have a feeling that you only read my title.

@haventr.1630 said:

@Oglaf.1074 said:Did you factor in the cost of completing the collection? They're not exactly free either.

Nope, I got confused and didn't realize that by "crafting" you meant "completing the collection".

@Oglaf.1074 said:

@haventr.1630 said:

@Oglaf.1074 said:Did you factor in the cost of completing the collection? They're not exactly free either.

You have to do the collection stuff plus craft it.

All I can say is that I made the hammer precursor this way, and I regret it (mostly because it actually ended up being MORE expensive than outright buying the precursor).

If you can actually do the collection cheaper, then why not?

You'll probably need all the gold you can spare to complete the legendary afterwards, no?

@Oglaf.1074 said:All I can say is that I made the hammer precursor this way, and I regret it (mostly because it actually ended up being MORE expensive than outright buying the precursor).

If you can actually do the collection cheaper, then why not?

You'll probably need all the gold you can spare to complete the legendary afterwards, no?Yes, but if the collection takes more than 3 hours, I actually lose money since I could make 90 gold in 3 hours by farming.

If your sole consideration is getting it as quickly and cheaply as possible then it's almost always better to buy it.

The collections weren't introduced to make precursors cheaper or easier to obtain, only to remove the RNG aspect. They were previously only available as incredibly rare drops or by throwing 4 rares/exotics into the Mystic Forge and hoping it dropped a precursor, which was more likely than getting it from an enemy but still pretty unlikely, most people had to make dozens of attempts to get one.

The collections were deliberately designed to cost roughly the same as crafting the hundreds of rares needed to get one from the MF (and to use similar materials) but a lot of people didn't understand that when they were first announced so hundreds of stockpiled precursors were dumped onto the Trading Post shortly after the collections were announced and the price never returned to the crazy levels they were at before that. It has since stabalised a bit. Which is why it's usually better to buy them - the TP prices are largely based on the cost to craft them but reduced by people who got one as a drop and people who got the materials cheaply/are bad at math/panic when they're undercut and take a loss to make sure it sells.

One other factor to consider is achievement points (APs). If those are important to you, then the price of building it yourself also buys APs, so it's not as "expensive" as it appears at first glance.

If you're only concern is gold-equivalent costs, you should buy the precursor, even if it costs more than completion the collection.

The collection method is for people who like collections, who want a reason to feel committed to the process, who want to experience the journey (or who are willing to trade time & coin for AP). For everyone else, skip all the hundreds of steps and clicks and buy.

90 gold is nothing relative to the total amount you'll spend on the legendary. But investing all that time waiting for events, seeking out scavenger targets, etc... is draining on a soul, unless that's how you like to spend your time in game.

More simply, if you're asking the question as if it's a question of coin alone, just spend the coin and be done with it.

Totally unhelpful, but when I read the title, all I could think of was the character Zap Rowsdower from the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode, "The Final Sacrifice." I wonder if there's beer on the sun? ;)

Another thing to factor in is the Events used by the collection. When they launched Pre crafting, 5 of them were improbable to complete due to needing an Event fork that only occurred on a failure (which is incredibly rare due to how most only need 2-3 participants to win). One was literally impossible due to being tied to an Incomplete event that was disabled in Beta. While most of these issues have been either fixed, or the requirements reassigned, but there are still several weapons that have 1 or more difficult to tackle events, due to player traffic levels and/or buggy triggers on the events themselves.

Another consideration is Phase 2 crafting, which make up well over half the item's total cost. Depending on the material spread, you'll need upwards of 45 Deldremore and/or Spiritwood, and 26k (26 thousand) T5 raw mithril or elderwood in some mixture. Theres also the baseline requirement of 10 Elonian Leather and prismatic gemstones (made from various lodestones). Most phase 3 collections also involve the construction of Gizmos (consuming even more T7 mats), Crafting various items from multiple disciplines, some require consumables, and many involve Heart or Event Vendors, which can be blocked or difficult to access due to the world state.

As an activity, the Collections can be incredibly enjoyable if you like exploration and side quests. However, the cost assessment has 2 fatal flaws..... You should NOT use the Orders (ie Buy Price) to make your estimates, as those require there being another Player willing to fill it. For rare or difficult to obtain items, these are very rarely fulfilled due to their drop frequency, and the price disparity in the buy orders is usually worth the risk of letting a Sell listing sit. If the buy and sell price disparity is larger then 15%, and measured in gold, then expect a Buy order to sit for 2 weeks to a Month (sometimes more). It will probably fill eventually.... but it may not be worth waiting for the level of savings involved. I make this assertion, because it can lead to unexpected gold shortages, given how much cheaper the collective Buy orders can be verses what you actually end up doing; Its a perceptual quirk in how GW2Eff displays its information, and some disparities can be pretty large when you get down to individual items.
The second is that GW2Eff is blind to certain processing steps- ESPECIALLY if they don't involve the Mystic Forge or a Crafting recipe. These occur more often on Gen 2 collections then Gen1, but does result in a Hidden gold/material cost. The crafting calculator can only reliably track direct relationships between items and their source recipes... so indirect ones, like exchanging an item to an NPC, or involve zero value account bound items, don't always reflect their real cost. For instance, if you look at Spinal Blades backpieces, most are listed as cheaper to craft then other back pieces..... but in reality they're 2-3 times more expensive, because the calculator treats Blade shards as 0 value, and doesn't recognize the recipe that converts sprockets to blade shards.

At the current prices of most Precurosrs, the gold savings are no longer worth the time cost; except in a few rare cases where an item spikes in popularity. Gen 2.5 (LS3) also changed how the process interacts with the markets, and has caused demand for items to increase across the board. With Xmas coming up, we'll see prices of certain items plummet, while others sky rocket in response to the dumps and sinks related to the holiday events. For Gen 1, T6 materials are relatively cheap at the moment... but have been steadily creeping up with the Halloween inflation.

If you want a TL;DR version..... I've done 5 Legendary crafting projects, and always ended up spending 100-200 more gold then estimated, due to situations that GW2Eff simply isn't capable of accounting for correctly. Hidden costs, buy orders that won't fill, time gates, and so on. And if you followed the assumption of doing your own daily crafting for the T7s (cuz its cheaper), its expected to take upwards of 6-8 weeks just on that time gate.
As a helpful tip for the future.... I've made a habit of stock piling daily T7 Ecto refinement, up to 130 each BEFORE even considering starting a Legendary project. In Parallel to this, I also passively collect T2-4 mats (using the Champ bag trick for leather and cloth)...... this saves a lot of time and headache if you plan to process your own T7 mats, as it'll become the biggest bottle neck at a couple points in every collection.

Collection is time sink and annoying.Buy it.

@Oglaf.1074 said:All I can say is that I made the hammer precursor this way, and I regret it (mostly because it actually ended up being MORE expensive than outright buying the precursor).

If you can actually do the collection cheaper, then why not?

You'll probably need all the gold you can spare to complete the legendary afterwards, no?

Hammer is a bit different since crafting also gets you the ooze gizmo.

There are some times when it's definitely worth it to spend a little more time on the collection. The Colossus was one of those, because you get to keep a tonic that turns you shiny. ;)

The collections also give you achievement points, which may be attractive to some players. But if nothing about the collection process is attractive, just buy the precursor and save yourself the time.

Personally I enjoy doing collections more than just buying stuff because it feels more like an accomplishment, if I just were to buy everything I want I would loose all interest in the game quite quickly. However some collections are quite tedious such as The Legend (Bifrost Precursor). So personally I'll do many collections and buy very few precursors.

I don't know how it is for Zap but I imagine buying it is a lot less tedious and less expensive but crafting it will most likely be more of a journey, if you're into that - go for it, otherwise, buy it, that will be a lot less frustrating

Plus some precursor collections are great fun. Particularly the Chuka Champawat one which is a must even if you don't make the legendary

@Randulf.7614 said:Plus some precursor collections are great fun. Particularly the Chuka Champawat one which is a must even if you don't make the legendary

It was fun up until the point where I literally just had to throw gold at the NPC in the form of 9001 Hammer heads and shafts....

That's the exact moment I wish I had just bought it instead.

@Randulf.7614 said:Plus some precursor collections are great fun. Particularly the Chuka Champawat one which is a must even if you don't make the legendary

Was a great journey.So great that i didn't care at all about the gold.By all means worth it.

@Randulf.7614 said:Plus some precursor collections are great fun. Particularly the Chuka Champawat one which is a must even if you don't make the legendary

Yeah, there are several that are super fun. (The grindy, craft a gazillion things parts aren't interesting, but then, they aren't worse than acquiring clover either.)

I loved making Kudzu, since it gives you plants you can harvest. Since I am a chef it helps get me stuff. I don't know if Zap collections offer something similar. I like doing collections so there is that as well. Since I like doing collections I have actually finished the tier 1 collections for basically all of the pres and am slowly getting more stuff so that I start the tier 2 stuff, which is the expensive part.

I think that the collections should offer addition rewards other than the precursor itself, such as legendary-specific titles or minis similar to the Chuka and Chumpawat tiger mini/backpack. This would further incentivize players to craft their own precursor instead of just buying it (and making the collections time/effort more worth while).

@Gaile Gray.6029 said:Time versus Expense. If you have the time to continue the collection, and if you're enjoying the process, then by all means continue.

@OP: I assume that by playing a game you have some free time. I find "Time versus Expense" to be a variable to consider only in the real life. In a game? Why are you playing the game? If you are the type of "player" who instantly go lvl 80 by buying a booster and then instantly "discover" the map by buying a scroll etc, then, OP, you should not only not buy the Zap. In my opinion you should stop "playing" this game, because you have no time to play. You can satisfy your buying urge at any real life shop.Second, if you are something like: "... but if the collection takes more than 3 hours, I actually lose money since I could make 90 gold in 3 hours by farming", then again not only not craft the precursor. You can simply find something to do in real life (like moving stones from one place to another place) if the "work" is a so powerful reason for you to ignore "playing" the game in the favor of "working" in the game.

But if you indeed play the game, then craft the precursor. The journey will take you around many places in the game, and this is not something you cannot like.Be prepared for one (i think the only) very difficult challenge: The Not so Secret jumping puzzle. You will need it.

Disclaimer: No matter how many time you have or what kind of playstile you have, I do not advise you to craft any second generation Legendary without a Legendary Journey attached. This is not Legendary Crafting, this is Legendary Gathering. A way the designers found to replace the work addiction in the real life with something similar in the game. In my opinion this is not "playing".