Supply and demand: Ecto prices in the market

[Remus Darkblight.1673]

Does anyone know what is happening with Ecto at the moment?

Prices are the highest they have been since September 2017 after a long period of relative stability, and supply is at the lowest level since August 2016.

https://imgur.com/a/9xe7VCE

There was a clear ramp up of supply and associated lowering of the prices between August 2022 and June 2023, peaking at 3.27m supply and a Buy/Sell of 1271 and 1378 (by far the highest supply and lowest prices ever). Supply has then taken a nose dive over the last 6 months leading to a subsequent doubling of prices to 2827 / 2961, currently supply sits at just over 480k.

Perhaps more importantly, is this likely to continue or will things stabilise?

 

 

[Bollocks.4078]

Probably this for open world legendary armor crafting

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Amalgamated_Kryptis_Essence

[Corvolupo.5708]

I think the answer Is SOTO and the devices needed to open the Rift and farm Essence for the upcoming legendary armor. You'll Need a LOT of ectoes for those...

[Remus Darkblight.1673]

6 minutes ago, Corvolupo.5708 said:

I think the answer Is SOTO and the devices needed to open the Rift and farm Essence for the upcoming legendary armor. You'll Need a LOT of ectoes for those...

 

6 minutes ago, Bollocks.4078 said:

Probably this for open world legendary armor crafting

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Amalgamated_Kryptis_Essence

Suggests to me then that prices will likely peak shortly after the armour is finally released as the ecto starts to flood back into the market, after most people have finished the grind and made their armour?

[Albadaran.1283]

8 minutes ago, Remus Darkblight.1673 said:

 

Suggests to me then that prices will likely peak shortly after the armour is finally released as the ecto starts to flood back into the market, after most people have finished the grind and made their armour?

Probably yes. Unless of course if the next game upgrades has another mechanic which needs ectos. One never knows...

[Manasa Devi.7958]

Just now, Albadaran.1283 said:

Probably yes. Unless of course if the next game upgrades has another mechanic which needs ectos. One never knows...

There will be the tier 2 legendary armors for which we don't know any of the materials yet.

[Donari.5237]

I think it'll be a long time before everyone that wants the new armor has finished sinking vast amounts of ecto into it.  I had over 1500 ecto before SotO, now I'm having to buy it fairly frequently, and I have only gathered the mats and collections (that are available thus far) for two and a half armor pieces.  Once the actual look and animations of the armor is made public, that could inspire a fresh wave of people working on it (or dissuade them if it turns out to have less appeal than the concept art; the heavy armor looks fantastic as sketched but could end up with floaty shoulders and clunky seam joins, for example, or horrendous blooming glow).  So I expect the price will remain high for at least a year.

[Randulf.7614]

Ectos have so many big sinks right now. The Gyala armour followed by the bigger demand for SoTo legendary armour means ectos are more needed than they have been in a long time.

I'm just about keeping pace replenishing my stocks from salavaging versus what I use them for

[Pinkeh.4207]

The rift motivations cost 5 each and you need hundreds of motivations, then the amalgamated kryptis essences need 50 each, and you need 70+ iirc, so its chewing into most crafter's reserves.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

it's not just from the latest expansion, it started to rise in gyala delve as the special ops armor is great and costs a massive amount of ectoplasm. i think there's also another cause though in that we haven't had branded, risen or ghosts on any new level 80 maps for a while so natural dust farms have fallen off, you pretty much only get dust from either rare bag drops, volatile magic conversions or from salvaging globs of ectoplasm these days.

 

up until end of dragons it always dropped pretty readily in the open-world. skywatch has a few elementals that drop it, that's all.

Edited December 14, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[Wolfofdivinity.6251]

Suddenly WvW leggy armor doesn't sound so bad after reading this. Yay we aren't the biggest pain in the butt set to get anymore!!!

[Danikat.8537]

17 hours ago, Remus Darkblight.1673 said:

Suggests to me then that prices will likely peak shortly after the armour is finally released as the ecto starts to flood back into the market, after most people have finished the grind and made their armour?

Probably a while after, there's also people like me who are waiting to see what it looks like in-game before starting on it, and there will be people who are trying to get as much as they can in advance but won't have it all done when the final steps are released.

[Remus Darkblight.1673]

1 hour ago, Danikat.8537 said:

Probably a while after, there's also people like me who are waiting to see what it looks like in-game before starting on it, and there will be people who are trying to get as much as they can in advance but won't have it all done when the final steps are released.

I'm one of those people, but only waiting to see what it looks like to decide which weight to get. Means I'm holding off on my WvW set too as I will be crafting whichever set I don't get in Obsidian.

8 hours ago, Wolfofdivinity.6251 said:

Suddenly WvW leggy armor doesn't sound so bad after reading this. Yay we aren't the biggest pain in the butt set to get anymore!!!

That was sort of the point of this armour, it was meant to be easy in terms of what you have to actually do, but balanced by the cost.

[Lucy.3728]

2 hours ago, Remus Darkblight.1673 said:

That was sort of the point of this armour, it was meant to be easy in terms of what you have to actually do, but balanced by the cost.

What does it cost, all considered?

My heavy wvw armor was 2300 gold in May this year.

[Remus Darkblight.1673]

Just now, Lucy.3728 said:

What does it cost, all considered?

My heavy wvw armor was 2300 gold in May this year.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Obsidian_armor

Well each piece needs a gift of expertise, which includes 600 ecto for 12 amalgamated kryptis essences, these run about 190g according to wiki, so 1,140g

You need 3 gifts of magical prosperity (Gloves, Legs, Boots) and 3 of Mighty Prosperity (Helm, Chest, Shoulders), these cost 205g and 135g respectively for a total of 1,020g

You also need two sets of armour that each cost a full set of gifts (fangs, blood, scales, etc. average about 20g) a purified kryptis essence (amalgamated essence plus a clover, 22g), plus some other stuff. So at least 42g per piece, x6 pieces, x2 armour sets (astral ward and oneiros spun) for 504g. On top of this there is a still as yet unreleased item, this could be another armour set.

Conservative estimate thus far about 2,664g

This doesn't account for the insane amount of account bound items you have to farm, the full set requires 18,000 essences of despair, 7,200 essences of greed, 3,600 essences of triumph, 1,500 exotic essences of luck, 30 cases of captured lightning, stardust, and congealed screams, 1,500 unusual coins, static charges, pinches of stardust, or calcified gasps, 300 provisioner tokens, and at least 6,000 research notes.

On top of all this, we're going to be getting a visual upgrade in a later update much like the gen 3 legendary weapons, which we don't know the cost for.

 

[Grimmsblood.5231]

We have one person and one person only to blame for this, along with their extreme addiction to ecto gambling (only thing I can imagine he's doing with this):

Lyhr 

He even swindles people who can use the mystic forge to craft things out of 10 ectos for each item. Presents an unlimited clover product that is also an ecto sink. Too many people are doing stuff through Lyhr so he can flush them down in a game of Sandstorm with his Facet of Degeneracy.

People like the Primeval Steward, Miyani, my man Rojan the Penitent are fair and non-addicted vendors of legendary components. Hell even the Jade Vault Keeper gives you 4 chests just for talking to her weekly.

The only solution is to organize a demonstration and boycott against Lyhr. DO NOT GIVE HIM ANY MORE ECTOS SO HE CAN LINE HIS OWN POCKETS!

[Zebulous.2934]

But how will you craft bags with 30+ slots?  Someone has to get the runes to sell them on the tp.  Someone will have to gamble for those runes of holding.

Edited December 16, 2023 by Zebulous.2934

[Linken.6345]

15 minutes ago, Zebulous.2934 said:

But how will you craft bags with 30+ slots?  Someone has to get the runes to sell them on the tp.  Someone will have to gamble for those runes of holding.

They also drop from convergences now mate.

[bagles.1804]

Like alot of people said Soto came with basically a massive ecto sink to dump all your ectos in but previous to this break i just took i use to farm dungeons daily just for a quick easy pile of ectos, in an hour run doing all the dungeon dailies prior to soto i was able to on average pull about 30 ectos give or take, now i can barely pull 15 on peak now, they definitely did something to the drop rates or something with soto messed with it but i haven't even been dumping my ectos its been a struggle and aggravating seeing that my normal daily routines from playing go from around 90-100 a day total, to barely being able to break 40 when most of the soto dumps require at least 5 -10 ectos (10 if u don't craft urself) per pop.

[Cyninja.2954]

27 minutes ago, bagles.1804 said:

when most of the soto dumps require at least 5 -10 ectos (10 if u don't craft urself) per pop.

Just a small reminder and advice: at 5 - 10 ecto price up (yes, Lyhr is a sneaky sob and charges for his services) per craft, you are looking at 1.5g-3g additional expense at current ecto prices.

Most crafting professions cost around 30-40 gold to level to 400 (sufficient to not have to rely on Lyhr ripping you off). That's around 20-25 crafts with Lyhr and as little as 10-15.

I'd strongly advise any player to level their crafting professions before using the easy fast way out with Lyhr.

For advice on saving costs and efficiently leveling crafting, use https://gw2crafts.net/ (I'd also suggest using the "fast" guides, since they save a ton of time, but if someone wants to save some gold, the regular guides are a bit cheaper nowadays).

Edited January 13 by Cyninja.2954