Precursor drops

[Ashen.2907]

As long as the process is random the desired result is NOT guaranteed regardless of the odds at 8000 attempts.

Of course 99.99% chance of the desired outcome is good enough for government work.

[Mazreal Blackknight.1564]

I dunno a few years ago I tried to forge, 4-6k gold washed away I got nothing of value. I was well into the idea my account was lucky with BLC and not getting a pre. I am ok with this. I have gotten 2 perm hair contracts and a perm merchant from the BLC I will take what I can get.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@"Ashen.2907" said:As long as the process is random the desired result is NOT guaranteed regardless of the odds at 8000 attempts.In a technical sense, no, not "guaranteed" as in "it's possible to describe a scenario in which there's no precursor. However, on a practical basis, yes, it's guaranteed.

The randomness comes into play when you consider 5999 failed attempts and asking the likelihood of the 6000th try: the odds of that don't change. RNG doesn't care what you had for breakfast or how lucky you've been so far.However, when we consider thousands of attempts, the law of large numbers comes into play. That's why we can say, absolutely, that the "House always wins." That doesn't mean that there won't be people who win (there will be). It means, over the long run, they are guaranteed to rake in the coin, even though they can lose big on any given roll, any given spin, any given shuffle.

We can't say which forge will be the lucky one, but we can make some accurate predictions about how many one gets if one forges for long enough.

Of course 99.99% chance of the desired outcome is good enough for government work.Which was why I posted the numbers for when the odds of failure dropped to infinitesimal levels.

[Andy.5981]

Reading this thread has made me feel much better. I just thought it was me. Been playing since just after launch. I've levelled a character of every class to level 80. Finished World completion and PoF on each of them and apart from two (who are at the Hearts and Minds mission in HoT) I've also completed HoT as well.

8.3K hours of proper play time, not afk for long periods, 28879 achievement points, level 40 PvP (stopped playing I hated it) and 1386 rank in Wvw (all played in the normal zones). Every single one of them has done all the living world events. Magic find is at 256%. I regularly do events in zones.

I've not dropped a single pre-cursor.

Which just goes to show that it is totally random.....

[Kumbaya.4689]

Playing since January, 31th 2017 and I got those:

• The Hunter (Silverwastes)
• The Colossus (Domain of Istan)
• The Energizer (Domain of Istan)

[mtpelion.4562]

I've never had one from a mob kill, but I've pulled 1 from my home instance Exalted chest, 1 from a champ bag, and the other 6 were from the Mystic Forge.

[Bollocks.4078]

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@"kitten.4078" said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

If you want to ensure that you get a precursor before you stop playing, there are two nearly guaranteed methods:

• Forge L74+ rares or exotics.
• Open unidentified gear bags (rares if you can afford, blues if you can't) (and with as much magic find as you can manage).

According to the wiki, if you forge exotics they need to have an average level of 75 or higher for a chance of getting a precursor. Neither of those methods ensures a precursor.

The wiki's text is out of date. It used to be thought (with reason) that the average level has to be 75. But I've found that 74 works too; I've never gotten a sub L80

rare

from forging and the exotic rate for exotic 80s is the same as using L75 gear.

It could take an astronomical amount of time or gold, or you might never get one.

That's an incorrect restatement of the statistical data that we have. There's an astronomical chance that you might never get one; the people who forge precursors "for a living" have enormous amounts of evidence that it happens eventually.

It's fair to say that you might spend more than you save

if

you don't forge very many; it's not correct to say

The only real guaranteed way is to buy on TP or craft one.

The law of large numbers says otherwise. It's not guaranteed that you get an average number of precursors, but if you forge enough, a finite amount far below "astronomical," you will get them.

---

Putting some numbers on this and assuming the rates haven't changed from 1:143 exotic tries... forging 1000 times means a 99.9% chance you'll get

at least one

precursor. With 1500 forges, it's 99.99% chance. At 2000 forges, the chances are astronomical that you won't get any precursors.

For rares (again assuming the 'true' rate is 1:860 as the original data shows), it takes 6000 forges to have a 99.9% chance to get at least 1. At 8000, it's 99.99%. And by 12000 forges, the chances are astronomical that you won't get any.

Are you saying 74 works for exotics or for rares? The output level works differently for exotics and sub-exotics, according to the wiki. It says that you need average of L75 when doing exotics, for sub exotics the output level is 3-12 levels higher that the average level of the inputs. Based on the info on the wiki you could get a precursor by forging 4 rares with an average level of 68 or higher. Your post also implies that each item needs to be L74 or higher which is not accurate. One of the items I forged to get my precursor was level 71. For exotics, one item could be as low as 60 if the other three are 80 (based on needing average of 75). I've seen at least as high as +10 on a rare to exotic upgrade in the forge. I did 4x L60 rares and got L70 exotic.

Nobody's questioning the math. 99.9% or 99.99% is indeed a very high chance of getting a precursor but it's not a guarantee. No number of random results "ensures" a specific outcome. Yes, with enough rolls you'd have an astronomically high chance of getting at getting a precursor and an astronomically low chance of not getting one but it's not "ensured."

There's also the cost of doing that many rolls. You'd need 4501 exotics to do 1,500 tries in the forge. It's hard to say how much that would cost but it is definitely extremely high. If you want the staff precursor you'd need to spend at least 1.1 to 1.3 gold each on exotic staves. Also the supply of staves at that price is low so you'll quickly start having to pay more and more the more you buy on the TP. Or your going to wait a very long time for that many buy orders to be filled. If we say 2 gold per staff on averate, which is probably a very low estimate, you'd need to spend 9,000 gold to do your 1,500 rolls in the forge. That's to maybe get a precursor that you could just instant buy on the TP for about 510 gold or try to buy for a lower offer (highest buy is currently about 440 gold).

Another note: the forge doesn't care how many times any individual poked the forge button. Individual results will vary, probably a lot. Over the last 3 or 4 years or more I've done less than 25 exotic forge rolls that could have given a precursor. I got very lucky, which means there are over 1,475 other peoples rolls that didn't get a precursor, based on the averages.

[Reverielle.3972]

@AoTsuki.8675 said:

@"MokahTGS.7850" said:To be honest, I think the game would benefit from a loot find mercy rule based on time played. Just some internal counter that your account accrues over time that buffs your chances of getting better drops. Better drops then "spend" these accruals and as time goes on you build up more. Random is all well and good, but going thousands of hours in a game without a better drop than an exotic worth 1-2 gold is kinda sad.

I had the same thought today, probably will never happen.We will probably get a flock of people saying "But you have to work for them!".I'm done working, have mercy and drop me one, not even good one.

You don't work for them, though. That's just madness.Just play the game, for the game, if you get a nice reward it's a bonus. But if you're looking solely for that reward, then you're just setting yourself up for disappointment, over and over again. It's not the way these games are designed to be played.

[DeadlySynz.3471]

Got 3.. a dusk way back when southsun cove came out. It came from karka queen or whatever karka boss was the main boss at that time. Almost sold it for a 100g at the time on the tp.. thankfully I held onto it.

The other 2 was the lover (short bow), and rage (harpoon). I believe those came from WvW

[jwaz.1908]

Been playing for 6 years, over 6000 hours, and haven't seen a single one.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@"Bollocks.4078" said:I'm going to message you privately, so we can discuss this without digressing the thread any further. (Assuming you want to discuss it further; it's fine if you don't, as it's not entirely relevant to the thread's original purpose.)

I think the ideas I posted above have sufficient evidence to back them up.

! Wiki explanation of the forge is out of date, just slightly. Possibly, it's not worth updating because it just complicates things for people without making a meaningful difference in what people come to the article to learn).! 99.99% is less than 100%, but the law of large numbers means that, in a practical sense, the distinction is moot. "Eventually" isn't just theoretical; we can bet on it happening.! * Regardless, the point is that anyone who is willing to forge (or buy/open unID gear bags) will end up with a precursor, if they want to get one to drop badly enough. It's not necessarily sensible financially; it's a serious and effective option for those that want to experience the favor of the RNG gods at least once.

[Steve The Cynic.3217]

I got Howl one time (pre for the G1 warhorn Howler), sometime after HoT launched, but before LS3 started, so I don't remember where it dropped. I'm inclined to say it was from a Tarir post-meta chest, or maybe something else in Auric Basin, but I don't remember for sure.

[phs.6089]

Spear from FractalsHammer from MFDusk from PvP reward track(a champ bag)and juts yesterday got Lover while doing bounty for daily in Desolation

[zionophir.6845]

@DeadlySynz.3471 said:Got 3.. a dusk way back when southsun cove came out. It came from karka queen or whatever karka boss was the main boss at that time. Almost sold it for a 100g at the time on the tp.. thankfully I held onto it.

The other 2 was the lover (short bow), and rage (harpoon). I believe those came from WvW

yeah, i remember when southsun cove was newly released, it is like a haven for precursor drops.

[Exalted Quality.8534]

I once got the spear precursor from a wvw loot bag.

[Warlord.9082]

I've had 4 drop in 1,5 years.

[Kalendraf.9521]

Depends on what you mean by "drop". I've gotten 3 from tossing rare/exotic weapons in to the mystic toilet, and one from a PvP rank-up/reward chest.

[Dante.1763]

@Dante.1763 said:After six years and over 6k hours i finally got one two months ago. Zap, from the mystic toilet, while throwing shields into the forge trying to get the Shield Pre... Ive purchased the rest of them.

Well.

I just got The Legend, Lover and Dawn from the mystic forge. Lover from random yellows, Legend from throwing in(4 delusions) which i got from yellow staffs, and Dawn from level 76 exotic greatswords. Whoooooooooo!

I think i used my luck for awhile.

[Sariel.2143]

Ive gotten 5 with 3K hours (2 of which were mf gamble & 1 from the Jotun weapon specialist in Bitterfrost frontier)4 BLC keys as drop

[Mokk.2397]

After 6 years .Zap dropped a week ago ..that's it.

[Anela.3867]

I got leaf of Kudzu in the Mystic Forge. What makes that amazing is that is the exact precursor I needed.

[borgs.6103]

I got The Hunter, The Colossus and Rodgort from WvW. Howl from a random mob and Spark from MF. 6 years of playing.

[sorudo.9054]

play since beta in april, not even one single drop......

[Deimos.4263]

My RNG for drops sucks. But for the mystic forge, I am apparently blessed. (I think I'm up to 28 precursors forged, I've lost count.)

So there I was in Harathi, waiting with some guildies for some loud-mouthed giant centaur or something? I get bored easily and so there I was chatting away while pretty much ignoring things and using my Mystic Forge Conduit.

My friend says idly she's trying to make Bolt, so I switch to exotic swords and start "going" for Zap, feeling fairly confident that I'd get one...eventually. And I did, several dozen attempts in. Not my first pre by a long shot, but I pinged it, and she got very excited when I mailed it to her. But wait, there's more.

I had a few more exotic swords left, so I figure why not -- I'll forge them too. Bam, second Zap. My jaw dropped at that one; back to back precursors. It went to another friend.

[MooseKnuckle.9562]

@AoTsuki.8675 said:Since my friend who is relatively new to the game dropped a precursor, I would like to ask you guys, did you ever get one dropped?I play since launch and never had one drop, had to buy them all off tp or craft.I won't say that I am not salty because I am.

I have been playing 5 years so far and I have never gotten a single drop ...I do not even have a legendary anything and I am wondering why I continue to play ....