The Zhaitan Variants

[Khisanth.2948]

There is an eventually but only for some people. Mainly fractal players. Still have 16 unopened ascended chests from when I was doing them semi-regularly.

[Ashen.2907]

10 minutes ago, Khisanth.2948 said:

There is an eventually but only for some people. Mainly fractal players. Still have 16 unopened ascended chests from when I was doing them semi-regularly.

Do the ascended weapons/armor you can buy with shards earned in strike missions work for this?

[Khisanth.2948]

12 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

Do the ascended weapons/armor you can buy with shards earned in strike missions work for this?

Only checked the armor since I have spare Defender's Chest of Helms around. The research kit could not be used on the helm but the weapons should work. According to the wiki you can select weapons from the weapon boxes that are the same as the crafted items.

However you should NOT be using those for research because they also have a gold cost making their cost per note somewhere around 6s/note.

[mythical.6315]

It'll take roughly 20 minutes to produce 10K research notes for a single skin. 

It'll take about 5 hours and 20 minutes to do this for all Zhaitan skins. 

For every skin, it'll take 32 hours.

[Ashen.2907]

8 minutes ago, Khisanth.2948 said:

Only checked the armor since I have spare Defender's Chest of Helms around. The research kit could not be used on the helm but the weapons should work. According to the wiki you can select weapons from the weapon boxes that are the same as the crafted items.

However you should NOT be using those for research because they also have a gold cost making their cost per note somewhere around 6s/note.

D'oh! Forgot about the gold cost. Thanks for the reminder.

[daninumbers.4036]

It somehow reminds me of a friend that's into trains and I asked him about that train simulator game that the full dlc collection costs thousands of dollars. He told me it's so people choose their fav ones and that's it, as you don't get the whole thing. Not the kind of business I like but this really looks like either you choose and get just 1 or 2 and their variations or get ready to drop thousands of gold to collect them all like this game has always been about.

By those words saying we just had to craft it once and then go on a journey to infuse it I was expecting a collection doing the main related events to that dragon, killing X number of its minions to use the magic in their remains... actually playing the game and not just a huge https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Golden_Sink

Since I had that precursor chest I was thinking of crafting it once prices went a bit down but probably nope, I'll stick to other gens that also have their own unique looks while also having the legendary armory perks.

A waste of their limited resources on something that even hardcore collectors aren't willing to put up with.

[Alaia Skyhawk.5064]

Edit: got the "single purchase" bit from a datamine for the vendor, and the wording of the official blog post indicates the final collection is what is repeated and the shards grant access to the colleciton. Apparently on reddit there's now posts from people who have completed it once and say you have to buy them again. So if the once-to-unlock is not what Anet meant, then they chose bad wording since that blog post can be read that way.

Edited May 25, 2022 by Alaia Skyhawk.5064

[Super Hayes.6890]

15 minutes ago, Alaia Skyhawk.5064 said:

Just thought to pop in here since it's clear a lot of people have mis-read the blog post. The 4 scale shards are single purchase, they unlock the Fracet of Shadows achievement and give you your first scale fragment to charge up. For subsequent skins, you buy the uncharged shard and repeat the Facet of Shadows achievement to gain more Fragmented Elder Dragon memories.

It's not 10k Research notes per skin, it's 10k Reseach notes to unlock access to the full set of 16 skins.

"Leivas sells the scale splinters you’ll need to create a Scale Fragment of Zhaitan and begin the Aurene’s Facet of Shadows collection." Unlock collection access.

"Repeat the Aurene’s Facet of Shadows achievement to collect the entire set of sixteen skins" You repeat the collection itself, not the shard purchase that unlocked it. You just buy a new fragment to use for the repeat of the collection.

 

Bless you!

[JeffJeth.9518]

13 minutes ago, Alaia Skyhawk.5064 said:

"Repeat the Aurene’s Facet of Shadows achievement to collect the entire set of sixteen skins" You repeat the collection itself, not the shard purchase that unlocked it. You just buy a new fragment to use for the repeat of the collection.

 

 

The item you get by combining four scale splinters IS the first item of the collection. So yes, you have to buy 4 scale splinters per weapon.

 

That said, I don't see why we have to buy all four the same week. We can buy 3, and then buy the last one after weekly reset the following week. Or, if you plan on making very many of them, buy 3 per week until you have the number you want. Or 2 per week. Or 1. The 10k research notes are not a hard and fast requirement like the 5 mystic clovers are.

[WelshCat.1306]

18 hours ago, Eloc Freidon.5692 said:

They literally lied about acquisition of the variants.  I am very disappointed.

 

10k Research Notes to get one piece to unlock access to a set.

 

200 Jade Runstone, 250 Memories of Aurene, and 5 Mystic Clovers for EACH Zhaitan unlock.

 

That's about 200G per variant on top of the nearly 3k gold to make the Aurene weapon in the first place.

Wait so putrid essence doesn't come into play at all? The thing that has never seen use since launch? Why even put them as a mob loot drop in dragon's end?

[Hellissane.3041]

Completed my first.

I don't see an indication that this is weekly in any way. You HAVE to pay the 10K research notes for each weapon, plus all the other stuff like 200 jade runestones and 250 memories of aurene.

Extremely disappointed. Especially if they keep the other versions like this as well. Requiring us to make 1 million bloody research notes(literally, as stated earlier) for all the gen3s is ridiculous - the notes system is not friendly for this kind of mass usage.

Edited May 25, 2022 by Hellissane.3041

[Gorem.8104]

Why did they include Clovers in the cost for skins? We need them to make our legendary gear sets, essentially, are these only for people who already have full legendary of each armour type, acc, and weapon? 
You don't gain a new legend when doing this, you just gain a new skin for a slot you already have access to, no new player should ever unlock these skins for years. It's literatlly setting them back on unlocking legendaries for their account. 

Not even to mention the notes and such, this is so new player unfriendly. And yet even the Vet's hate it. So who exactly was this for? This idea to go against what Anet was saying and make it per weapon, instead of per set? It should be do it once, get all 16 skins that unlock when you unlock the base. 

[Rysdude.3824]

Just watched the Zhaitan kill animation on youtube.  Looks pretty good.  Might be a long term goal for one of my weapons

[Astralporing.1957]

6 hours ago, mythical.6315 said:

It'll take roughly 20 minutes to produce 10K research notes for a single skin. 

It'll take about 5 hours and 20 minutes to do this for all Zhaitan skins. 

For every skin, it'll take 32 hours.

The cheapest options for getting research notes give about 5 notes on average per craft/salvage. That's ~2000 crafts/salvages. To do it in 20 minutes, you'd need to make 100 crafts+salvages per minute. That's ~1.7 crafts and salvages per second. For 20 minutes straight.

Frankly, considering that crafting itself takes time, i doubt it is even possible to do it that fast at all. Even if it theoretically is, i doubt most players would be able to do it. I know i would not.

Edited May 25, 2022 by Astralporing.1957

[Linken.6345]

18 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

The cheapest options for getting research notes give about 5 notes on average per craft/salvage. That's ~2000 crafts/salvages. To do it in 20 minutes, you'd need to make 100 crafts+salvages per minute. That's ~1.7 crafts and salvages per second. For 20 minutes straight.

Frankly, considering that crafting itself takes time, i doubt it is even possible to do it that fast at all. Even if it theoretically is, i doubt most players would be able to do it. I know i would not.

Well since you can salvage stack now it is possible someone can do it that fast.

And since you dont have to craft it yourself you can just buy it off the trading post the crafting time should not be included.

[mythical.6315]

24 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

The cheapest options for getting research notes give about 5 notes on average per craft/salvage. That's ~2000 crafts/salvages. To do it in 20 minutes, you'd need to make 100 crafts+salvages per minute. That's ~1.7 crafts and salvages per second. For 20 minutes straight.

Frankly, considering that crafting itself takes time, i doubt it is even possible to do it that fast at all. Even if it theoretically is, i doubt most players would be able to do it. I know i would not.

I timed how long it took to go through the entire process to salvage an entire stack before I made the post.  I then extrapolated that out to how long it would take for everything else. 

Edited May 25, 2022 by mythical.6315

[Xerxez.7361]

7 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

There's no "eventually" with research notes. It's not something you pick up at a very slow rate just playing through the content. You need to actively go for a crafting stuff/salvaging with that one specific salvage kit routine to get them. You'd be doing thousands of crafting/salvaging of individual items just for a single skin.

The problem is not the cost/materials used. The problem lies in specific mechanics of acquisition.

I still have 20,000 Research Notes left over and I keep getting plenty of Ascended to Salvage from Raids, Fractals, & Strikes that it isn't a big enough deal for me. Also you don't have to craft anything for Salvaging there are items you can buy directly from TP to salvage for Research Notes.

[Ashantara.8731]

On 5/24/2022 at 7:57 PM, yoni.7015 said:

the 10.000 research notes, it's ridiculous

Yes, and if I will have to get 10,000 for each skin, I will certainly unlock only 1 of the 3 Aurene Legendaries I crafted.

Which is okay, because they are rather unattractive -- I made the mistake to not preview the skins before producing 10,000 Research Notes. Hey, my bad.

Really not worth the cost nor effort.

Edit: https://i.imgur.com/wrDL5Za.jpg
 

Edited May 25, 2022 by Ashantara.8731

[soulknight.9620]

@ArenaNet can we please get any kind of comment on this issue? Will there be some kind of changes/fixes? Since you did actually stated there wouldnt be resource cost to the dragon variants after we get the base version. 

[Nico.9361]

16 minutes ago, soulknight.9620 said:

@ArenaNet can we please get any kind of comment on this issue? Will there be some kind of changes/fixes? Since you did actually stated there wouldnt be resource cost to the dragon variants after we get the base version. 

No one expected the skins to be handed out for free though. The Arah (Orr) events might be more of a problem for most ppl than mats.

[kenny.7236]

 Sold most if not all my eod stuff that are required to make gen 3 weapons.

 

Will continue to craft gen 1 & 2 weapons.

[soulknight.9620]

31 minutes ago, NotTooFoolish.7412 said:

No one expected the skins to be handed out for free though. The Arah (Orr) events might be more of a problem for most ppl than mats.

They did actually stated that: "You’ll only need to forge each weapon once, then you’ll go on a journey with it to attune it to the magic of the other Elder Dragons. So all those amazing greatswords Chelsea showed us are really just the same greatsword attuned to different magics, and you won’t have to worry about spending tons of resources making and remaking these weapons." 
Thats literary from their news post : https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/a-closer-look-at-the-guild-wars-2-end-of-dragons-legendary-weapons/

And sure there is a difference between "for free" as in doing nothing to get it, and "for free" as in doing an achiev, but without spending gold worth half of a gen1 legendary. I dont mind doing events etc to get the achiev done, but cmon a gold price on a skin thats equal to 1/2 of a gen1 legendary to get a skin (and particulary not a very good one too) is too much.

And yet again the major selling point of gen3 legendaries was that it will have 7 skin variants with one initial payment (to craft it). The skins itself (both base version and dragon themed ones) by quality are close to BLC skin sets. And i havent seen a single BLC skin that cost that much to get (usually they are around 50-100g). 

They really should either lower the prices per skin to a reasonable amount of 50-70g (like BLC skins) or make this collection a one time thing to unlock all of the skins of particular dragon. 

[Hellissane.3041]

6 minutes ago, NotTooFoolish.7412 said:

No one expected the skins to be handed out for free though. The Arah (Orr) events might be more of a problem for most ppl than mats.

No one expected to be free.
But when Anet say that "you won’t have to worry about spending tons of resources making and remaking these weapons" nobody expects the skins to cost almost much as the legendary itself.
A legendary costs 2500 gold while its skins would currently have a combined cost of minimum 1700 gold. (6 skins, each costing: 18g for clovers, 22g for ambergris, 84g for jade runestones, 52g for memories of aurene, 100+g for research notes, 100 spirit shards) 

Also a collection is done in roughly 2-3 hours, give or take some time for waiting at steps 2 and 7. So unless most people can make 150g/hour when the benchmarks are 27g/hour, then mats would be a far larger issue for most people. 

[Erise.5614]

42 minutes ago, Hellissane.3041 said:

No one expected to be free.
But when Anet say that "you won’t have to worry about spending tons of resources making and remaking these weapons" nobody expects the skins to cost almost much as the legendary itself.
A legendary costs 2500 gold while its skins would currently have a combined cost of minimum 1700 gold. (6 skins, each costing: 18g for clovers, 22g for ambergris, 84g for jade runestones, 52g for memories of aurene, 100+g for research notes, 100 spirit shards) 

Also a collection is done in roughly 2-3 hours, give or take some time for waiting at steps 2 and 7. So unless most people can make 150g/hour when the benchmarks are 27g/hour, then mats would be a far larger issue for most people. 

I think quite a lot of people who are justifiably upset misunderstand the purpose ANet is going for.

G3 legendaries are the cheapest legendary weapons by far. They are a bit above 2.5k currently due to still being the hot new thing. But only if you want to buy them now on the TP.

Crafting is quite consistently ~1.8k gold. So you pay 700 gold for the convenience of not having to craft it yourself.

Of those 1.8k gold, 900 are to buy Antique Summoning Stones. To skip that time gate. If you buy them yourself at 5 per week, a G3 legendary costs around 1k. At ~250 gold per variation, you get to craft the weapon and 2-3 variations for the price of crafting one G1/G2 legendary.

250 gold worth of stuff really isn't expensive. And, considering these prices, I believe ANet expects most people to farm the mats. Not buy them. Or at least have much more people farm the mats that is happening right now. So the prices come down more eventually. The three mats (except research notes) and Antique Summoning Stones have had a steady price or increased in value for the past ~two months. Despite us all knowing for certain that prices will drop in the long term. By as much as ~75% if we follow the price development of Gemstones and MCs. 

Salvaging research notes may use up more time than it should with mindless inventory management and watching crafting bars. Which is a valid complaint. However, I find that too overblown as no one is gonna sit down and just do that for hours on end. Let's remember that there's at least 2k gold before you need to spend probably less than hour crafting the variation (once you have the raw version of the mats and only need to convert / craft / buy stuff). Or you will only be doing it like twice a year maximum if you farm everything yourself.

TLDR: 

I'm pretty sure the issue is overblown. The weapons are a long term lure that should support the games reward structure for years to come. 

This only an issue because people want to rush long term rewards. Which is valid and exciting! But you have to expect to overpay and a to encounter a bunch of annoying steps along the way.

Edited May 26, 2022 by Erise.5614

[Hellissane.3041]

21 minutes ago, Erise.5614 said:

I think quite a lot of people who are justifiably upset misunderstand the purpose ANet is going for.

I'm pretty sure the issue is overblown. The weapons are a long term lure that should support the games reward structure for years to come. 

 

Yes, that would had been valid if Anet never made statements about the cost of the skins. But they did. This is not overblowing an issue, its a backlash to their statement.