Lets say I wanted to buy a Legendary Weapon.

Lets say I wanted to buy a Legendary Weapon, where does one go to buy it other than the Trading Post, the way I see it I could theoretically spend less money since the crafter would have lost that money in the listing fee and the exchange fee any way. Plus I'm sure those things sit up there forever, so I assume seller probably sell the weapons at a fraction of what's listed. With that said how much money would Twilight cost, since it's listed at 2750 on the TP subtracting the fees you'd think you should only be paying the crafter 2384 if you were trading directly right, or can you buy it realistically cheaper than that even? I'm just BSing any way, I figure it should make an interesting topic right?

The safest way would be to put in a tempting buy order on the TP and wait for a player to sell it to you.Never buy gold or weapons from 3rd party websites. And if you still want to trade outside of the TP (guild members, friends etc), do so with people you absolutely trust at your own risk!

I personally would never buy or sell a legendary off of the trading post. Way too risky.

There is no other way for safe, supported by Anet trade than TP. If you want a deal outside of TP, anet won't help you if you end up being scammed.

Here is an the best-known grey market site for trading:

• https://www.reddit.com/r/GW2Exchange/, moderated by some trustworthy redditors as well some knowledgeable forum posters. (Their account names are posted on the sidebar.) (There's also a list of known scammers to avoid.)
• https://discord.gg/D3JaTHn the Discord community for GW2 Exchange (above)

There have been 100s and 100s of transactions via that site, the vast majority of them go off without a hitch, including a few folks who regularly pay someone else to complete a legendary (using their Map Completion tokens and other account-bound rewards, which they then resell for a tidy profit (while still being cheaper than the TP for the buyer).

However, there's no guarantees: if you get scammed or there's any sort of problem, ANet cannot do anything to help you (they might or might not suspend a scammer's account, but that won't get you back your coin). The only way to ensure a safe transaction is to use the TP, as others have correctly pointed out above.

To reiterate:

• You should use the TP unless you are willing to assume that a 10-15% discount is worth the chance that you might lose everything.
• If you do go outside the TP, check the deal carefully. Consult the list of known scammers. Consider paying someone to escrow the exchange (a "middleman"). Link above for finding/posting deals and finding trusted escrow agents.

You put up a buy offer on the trading post that is the max you want to pay and if its what someone is willing to sell it for then you will get it.

If not you will have to raise your max untill you get it bought.

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:Here is an the best-known grey market site for trading:

• https://www.reddit.com/r/GW2Exchange/, moderated by some trustworthy redditors as well some knowledgeable forum posters. (Their account names are posted on the sidebar.) (There's also a list of known scammers to avoid.)
• https://discord.gg/D3JaTHn the Discord community for GW2 Exchange (above)

There have been 100s and 100s of transactions via that site, the vast majority of them go off without a hitch, including a few folks who regularly pay someone else to complete a legendary (using their Map Completion tokens and other account-bound rewards, which they then resell for a tidy profit (while still being cheaper than the TP for the buyer).

However, there's no guarantees: if you get scammed or there's any sort of problem, ANet cannot do anything to help you (they might or might not suspend a scammer's account, but that won't get you back your coin). The only way to ensure a safe transaction is to use the TP, as others have correctly pointed out above.

---

To reiterate:

• You should use the TP unless you are willing to assume that a 10-15% discount is worth the chance that you might lose everything.
• If you do go outside the TP, check the deal carefully. Consult the list of known scammers. Consider paying someone to escrow the exchange (a "middleman"). Link above for finding/posting deals and finding trusted escrow agents.

Wait you can sell those, I've done map completion twice?

@"Oldirtbeard.9834" said:Wait you can sell those, I've done map completion twice?

You can't sell them. You can sell the product of your labor.

The going rate seems to be about 400 gold for paying someone else to make a legendary. Here's how it works:

• You & I agree that you'll make me "The Minstrel", using your Gift of Exploration.
• I provide you with 400 gold (for the labor) plus all the necessary unbound materials that you'd need: The Bard (the precursor), the T6 mats for their gifts, the various other items.
• I also give you an additional 100 gold for the Ice Runestones required.
• You use your Gift of Exploration, plus use your own source of mystic clover, your own Gift of Battle, and your own dungeon tokens (plus whatever I forgot to remember to list out here).
• You end up with The Minstrel and ship it to me.

(The order in which stuff is sent can depend on with whom you're trading; with a trusted partner, I might send everything first. With someone I hardly know, I might only send the minimum number of items for each step and wait for your GW2 Efficiency to update to show that you're using it for the agreed-upon purpose.)

So it's simply "shorthand" to say that you're selling me the Gift of Exploration, because who has time to type out all of the above each time?

If that doesn't make sense, I can rephrase. Or feel free to ask specific questions about how it works in practice. You wouldn't be the first finding the concept difficult to wrap your head around.

@Seera.5916 said:I personally would never buy or sell a legendary off of the trading post. Way too risky.

What are you talking about? The TP is absolutely the safest way.

@MachineManXX.9746 said:

@Seera.5916 said:I personally would never buy or sell a legendary off of the trading post. Way too risky.

Typed abit bad perhaps but they off in that sentence mean not from the trading post so regular mail transaction.

It can be done, but it's extremely risky. There isn't a secure trade system in this game outside the TP, because Anet wants everything to go through that. You'd have to send the gold off and trust that you'll get the legendary in return and if they don't send it there's absolutely nothing you can do. Even if you report them and they get banned you won't get the gold back.

I'm going to be in the opposite situation soon: I'm working on a legendary I'm planning to sell and I've got a mental list of about 10 people I'd trust to buy it outside the TP. They're all people I've known for a long time and who I consider friends. With anyone else I wouldn't chance it. (Unfortunately I don't think any of them would want it, so I'll be putting it on the TP.)

If you do go that route I recommend going through an intermediary, ideally someone you both trust. You send the gold to them, the seller sends the legendary to them and once they've got both they send it on.

@Oldirtbeard.9834 said:

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:Here is an the best-known grey market site for trading:

• https://www.reddit.com/r/GW2Exchange/
  , moderated by some trustworthy redditors as well some knowledgeable forum posters. (Their account names are posted on the sidebar.) (There's also a list of known scammers to avoid.)
• https://discord.gg/D3JaTHn
  the Discord community for GW2 Exchange (above)

There have been 100s and 100s of transactions via that site, the vast majority of them go off without a hitch, including a few folks who regularly pay someone else to complete a legendary (using their Map Completion tokens and other account-bound rewards, which they then resell for a tidy profit (while still being cheaper than the TP for the buyer).

However, there's no guarantees: if you get scammed or there's any sort of problem, ANet cannot do anything to help you (they might or might not suspend a scammer's account, but that won't get you back your coin). The only way to ensure a safe transaction is to use the TP, as others have correctly pointed out above.

---

To reiterate:

• You should use the TP unless you are willing to assume that a 10-15% discount is worth the chance that you might lose everything.
• If you do go outside the TP, check the deal carefully. Consult the list of known scammers. Consider paying someone to escrow the exchange (a "middleman"). Link above for finding/posting deals and finding trusted escrow agents.

You can't sell the Gift of Exploration directly but along with the other components for the Gift of Mastery (which are the Gift of Battle, 200 bloodstone shards and 250 obsidian shards) it's the only totally account bound component of a legendary. Everything else is either tradable or bought/made with tradable parts.

So what some people will do is send everything else - the precursor, the materials for the Gifts, 100g for Icy Runestones etc. to a person who either has a spare Gift of Mastery or who is willing and able to get one quickly, then they make the legendary and send it back. (Presumably they also get a fee to cover the cost of the time that went into the Gift of Mastery.) It's very risky of course - there's absolutely nothing stopping them from keeping everything, or making the legendary and then selling it. But if someone trusted you and really didn't want to do map completion it's an option.

(Or it's done as a way for multiple people to gift a legendary - one person contributes the Gift of Mastery, other people provide the gold and materials for everything else.)

@Linken.6345 said:

@MachineManXX.9746 said:

@Seera.5916 said:I personally would never buy or sell a legendary off of the trading post. Way too risky.

Oh okay, now that I re-read it I see what you meant. Therefor, I totally agree with you!

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:The going rate seems to be about 400 gold for paying someone else to make a legendary. Here's how it works:

This i really dont understand. When i look at gw2efficiency, you can craft and sell a legy via tp for a 700-1000g profit. Why would anyone take only 400g for it with the additional disadvantage of an unsafe trade outside of the tp?

Not sure if the 700-1000g already include the taxes, but even if not you could get around 600g after taxes...

@Jojo.6140 said:

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:The going rate seems to be about 400 gold for paying someone else to make a legendary. Here's how it works:

Sure, you're technically correct: the most efficient choice is to make your own legendary, if you have 2000g worth of mats plus all the necessary account bound elements. It turns out that there are lot of people with extras of the account bound mats and without enough of the unbound. There are fewer with 1500-2500k worth of mats, willing to risk them all on a single sale to make 20-30%.

In effect, both parties are offering up effort & risk, so they are splitting the difference. The Gift of Exploration seller gets 400g to cover their efforts; the buyer gets whatever is left over and has to come up with all the mats. Generally speaking, the seller is someone like the OP: they have all the necessary account-bound requirements sitting in their bank taking up room, so 400 gold is 400 gold; the only risk they take is the grey market transaction. The buyer doesn't want to farm another gift of exploration and they are assuming all of the other risks plus the transaction risk.

The reason that the price — 400 gold — favors the buyer is that there are plenty of sellers. Why so many? Making & selling a legendary requires a lot of effort beyond just putting some items in the mystic forge. Collecting them all at a low-enough price, with little-enough effort takes planning. Choosing an appropriate price for the legendary is risky. Is the market going down (as it has been recently)? Then you could be waiting months. Is it going up? Then perhaps the components would be worth more sold individually.

That 700-1000g you mention as "profit" is only theoretical. It's definitely possible for a clever trader to get that much, but not everyone wants to risk that large a sum on a single trade. And many of the sellers don't have all the mats (or the wherewithal to obtain them easily).

tl;dr lots of people with all the required account bound items gathering dust. A smaller group of people with the heuvos rancheros to risk 2-3k worth of mats on selling them as a single unit. One from each subset form a temporary consortium to split the profit, not quite down the middle.

I'm glad I brought up this discussion, there's a lot of useful information here in one place that takes a lot of digging to find, I suppose of questions arise else where you can send them to this thread.