Legendary weapons: what they are for and where to start

The first thing to settle: a legendary does not make you stronger. Its stats are identical to an ascended weapon you could craft in a week.

People spend months on them for the convenience instead. Worth knowing which convenience.

What a legendary buys you

Free stat swapping. An ascended piece is locked to one attribute set: built for one role, it stays that way. A legendary re-rolls its stats as often as you like, at no cost.

Free sigil swapping. Same idea, for the inserts.

One copy, every character. Through the Legendary Armory a single legendary is available to all your characters at once. Not passed around, available simultaneously. For anyone playing several characters this is the heaviest argument on the list.

Skins without Transmutation Charges. Appearance changes cost nothing.

So a legendary is not a weapon, it is release from bookkeeping. One character in one build does not need it. Five characters and a habit of rebuilding, and it pays for itself.

Three generations

Generation 1 shipped with the base game, each weapon type with its own look.

Generation 2 arrived with Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire, also with unique models.

Generation 3 came with End of Dragons as themed collections, with extra skin sets in the style of each Elder Dragon.

Start with generation 1. It has existed since launch, the market around it has settled, and the route is known. Later generations want more work inside their expansions.

What the recipe is made of

Four things go into the Mystic Forge:

1. A precursor, either bought on the Trading Post or built through a collection
2. Gift of the Legendary Weapon, specific to each weapon
3. Gift of Fortune, which swallows Mystic Clovers and piles of materials
4. Gift of Mastery, holding map completion, Gift of Battle from WvW and Obsidian Shards

The precursor is usually the largest single line and the one that scares people off. It is also the only one with a visible price tag on the Trading Post, which makes planning easy.

What the materials cost

Current prices for the things a legendary eats in bulk are below. Live numbers, updated on their own.

A few notes that save money.

Mystic Coin works as currency at the top of the market. They arrive through daily rewards and every legendary wants a lot of them. If a legendary has crossed your mind at all, start putting them aside now, before you have even chosen the weapon.

Glob of Ectoplasm is the same story in larger quantities.

Tier 6 materials (Vial of Powerful Blood, Ancient Bone, Elaborate Totem, Powerful Venom Sac, Armored Scale, Pile of Crystalline Dust) are bought by the stack. Their prices move together, and buying gradually beats buying all at once: a sudden order lifts the price under itself.

Mystic Clovers and Obsidian Shards are not sold on the Trading Post. No amount of gold shortcuts them, only the Mystic Forge and karma. When you budget, remember that part of the road cannot be paid past.

Honest advice for a new player

Do not start a legendary early. It gives you nothing that a few gold of exotic does not, and it eats months.

But start hoarding. Do not spend Mystic Coins and ectoplasm on small things. They will matter when you are ready to decide, and this is the rare case where working ahead pays.

Sort out the basics first. A full exotic set, then ascended for fractals, then a legendary. That order is not about difficulty; each step only makes sense once the one before it is done (what to do at 80).