32 replies to this topic

[Sordus456]

I dont know if this is already well known but I was going to put this out there in case someone did not know. A friend of mine gave me this insight. 600 gems for 30 slots in your storage is quite a bit. Why not 4g for 50 slots. Create your own guild with only you in it and buy about 2000 influence. Its 2g per 1000 influence with Drinks on the City. Queue up your guild bank and when its done, you have your own personal storage with that guild of yours.

MAKE SURE YOU ARE REPRESENTING the guild you want the influence in. I made this mistake and wasted 4g. Of course it went to help out the bigger guild I was in but it was a little dissapointing.

Enjoy if you did not already know this.

[Westwater]

Another thing you can do is use your mailbox.  If you have a trustworthy friend, send them whatever you want to be stored (provided it's tradable) then have them mail it back to you.  Each letter can hold 4 stacks of items, and you can just leave it there and not open it until you need it.  Just be sure to save 2 or 3 slots so you can still get normal mail.

[Ritualist]

1. Can you access the guild storage from Borderlands?
2. As far as I know, you can not put account/soul-bound items into the guild storage.

[Sheepski]

While this is good if you're into storing loads of materials etc rather than selling them, but for all the armour, weapons, account bound tokens and crap from events, chests etc etc it doesn't help unfortunately.

[Gruunz]

It may be cheaper but it's not ideal for the long run. If you decide to switch worlds, you'll lose that guild bonus.

[madmaxII]

Aren't character slots better than stash slots when you need more space? Of course you will have to pay 200 gems more at first, but you get 20 inventory slots and 4 empty bag slots. Even if you only buy the extremely cheap 10 slot bags, you will have 60 slots in the end.
I understand that the stash is more comfortable as you don't have to relog on another character, but if you want the most space for gems you should buy character slots.

[moomooo1]

It's great for storing crafting materials. When stacking more than 250 in your bank, you take 250 stack out, then reset the grid so you can continue depositing collectible. However when crafting, the system has a counter-intuitive way of taking the materials *not* in the grid, so you end up with 2 incomplete stacks that need to be merged.

But then of course, if they're in your gbank, you can't use them to craft... So take it whichever way you'd like.

[Lucas Ashrock]

I don't know if was me giving you this suggestion, but ye, i can confirm is a way better use of money to get slots than buy gems, much more if you have deluxe edition special items and instaboost your first stash. Happily alone always representing. And if you need them and in the mood of a little investment, boost your personal guild to be able to use a full stash and 3 days banners and well profit! Why deal with some wierdos joining some noone just for their 3 days boost you will never be called nor aware of when and where was used?

Sheepski, on 13 January 2013 - 10:12 AM, said:

While this is good if you're into storing loads of materials etc rather than selling them, but for all the armour, weapons, account bound tokens and crap from events, chests etc etc it doesn't help unfortunately.

Well after all, how many extra weapons you will have to prefer a full guild stash to a few bank account slots?

Edited by Lucas Ashrock, 13 January 2013 - 07:42 PM.

[Kor]

One can always go the cheaper, much longer route of grinding out the influence...

I had this same idea right before Halloween.  I had already used my Tome of Influence on my friend's guild, so I just started to rep on my off hours, a little WvW every once in a while, and before Thanksgiving I had my 50 slots.  To upgrade to the 100 slot is a slightly larger accomplishment, but I hope to be done gathering influence by St. Patrick's Day.  Very long term orientated, but if you're not really putting your influence to good use otherwise and don't want to spend the gold on buying gems or influence, perfectly workable.

[Bloodtau]

I always have a pack mule character as an extra "bank".

[Daesu]

Kor, on 13 January 2013 - 11:00 PM, said:

One can always go the cheaper, much longer route of grinding out the influence...

I had this same idea right before Halloween.  I had already used my Tome of Influence on my friend's guild, so I just started to rep on my off hours, a little WvW every once in a while, and before Thanksgiving I had my 50 slots.  To upgrade to the 100 slot is a slightly larger accomplishment, but I hope to be done gathering influence by St. Patrick's Day.  Very long term orientated, but if you're not really putting your influence to good use otherwise and don't want to spend the gold on buying gems or influence, perfectly workable.

I had that idea during the beta and I posted it in this forum.  It took only about 1.5 weeks for me to get 2500 influence for the 50 slots personal guild bank, just by playing normally.  The 100 slot version needs a lot more, like 20k influence.

[Kor]

Daesu, on 13 January 2013 - 11:54 PM, said:

I had that idea during the beta and I posted it in this forum.  It took only about 1.5 weeks for me to get 2500 influence for the 50 slots personal guild bank, just by playing normally.  The 100 slot version needs a lot more, like 20k influence.

One and a half weeks for 2,500 influence huh; I suppose repping for one guild all the time helps speeds that up.  And yea, it's 20,000 influence for the 100 slot.  I'm about halfway to the Level 4 Architecture influence requirement of 10,000, then just another 5,000 for the actual unlock.

[Daesu]

Kor, on 14 January 2013 - 12:13 AM, said:

One and a half weeks for 2,500 influence huh; I suppose repping for one guild all the time helps speeds that up.  And yea, it's 20,000 influence for the 100 slot.  I'm about halfway to the Level 4 Architecture influence requirement of 10,000, then just another 5,000 for the actual unlock.

Yes this is my post about it then:

http://www.guildwars...60#entry1689066

You can also pay for influence if you want to speed things up.

Edited by Daesu, 14 January 2013 - 02:07 AM.

[draxynnic]

Hrrrmn. So to set some fixed gold prices for storage:

50 slot guild bank: 2500 influence -> 5g/50 slots -> 10s/slot if you do it purely through buying influence.
Extra 50 slots: 20000 influence -> 40g/50slots -> 80s/slot if you do it purely through buying influence.

Of course, if you're patient and have no better uses for influence, these are effectively free.

Crafting bags (assuming price of materials negligible cf rune of holding, which is probably a reasonable assumption except for T6 and maybe T5 materials, and assuming starting with 8-slot bags since they cost coppers to acquire):

Upgrade 8-slot to 10-slot: 4s96c buys you 2 extra slots -> 2s48c per slot
Upgrade 10-slot to 12-slot: 14s80c buys you 2 slots -> 7s40c per slot
Upgrade 8-slot to 12-slot: 14s80c buys you 4 slots -> 3s70c per slot
Upgrade 12-slot to 15-slot: 50s buys you 3 slots -> 16s67c per slot
Upgrade 10-slot to 15-slot: 50s buys 5 slots -> 10s per slot
Upgrade 8-slot to 15-slot: 50s buys 7 slots -> 7s15c per slot
Upgrade 15-slot to 18-slot: 2g buys 3 slots -> 66s67c per slot
Upgrade 12-slot to 18-slot: 2g buys 6 slots -> 33s34c per slot
Upgrade 10-slot to 18-slot: 2g buys 8 slots -> 25s per slot
Upgrade 8-slot to 18-slot: 2g buys 10 slots -> 20s per slot
Upgrade 18-slot to 20-slot: 10g buys 2 slots -> 5g/slot
Upgrade 15-slot to 20-slot: 10g buys 5 slots -> 2g/slot
Upgrade 12-slot to 20-slot: 10g buys 8 slots -> 1g25s/slot
Upgrade 10-slot to 20-slot: 10g buys 10 slots -> 1g/slot
Upgrade 8-slot to 20-slot: 10g buys 12 slots -> 83s34c/slot

You'd need to look at the material prices before making the call, but it's probably a safe bet that you'd want to deck out your characters with 15- or at least 12-slot bags before looking at buying influence for the initial stash, and even if you're already fully decked out with 15-slot bags the 18-slot bags are reasonably competitive with buying influence to upgrade to a trove.

Buying inventory slots with gems will normally cost you about 20 gems/slot if you buy a bank upgrade, which translates to roughly 30s/slot in the current market (it's about 1g50s per 100 gems, or 1s50c per gem, if I recall correctly). Buying a character slot for a mule is cheaper - comes to about 15 (22s50c) gems per slot if you outfit the mule with 8-slot boxes, 10 gems and 2s50c per slot (17s50c total) if you give them 15-slot bags. So if you want to maximise total inventory space for minimum gold cost, in the current market you probably want to take the following approach:

1) Outfit all characters with 15-slot bags/boxes.
2) Convert gold to influence to get a 50-slot guild stash, if you haven't already got it.
3) Convert gold to gems to buy mules, then outfit those mules with 15-slot bags/boxes.
4) If you need to go to 4, you're really keeping too much stuff, and I'm saying this as a hoarder myself.

If the gem price inflates, it might start becoming more attractive to get 18-slot boxes. If it inflates a LOT, buying influence for a treasure trove might start looking worthwhile, if you haven't already got your trove without buying influence by then, and maybe even 20-slot boxes, but that would require a gem price on the high side of the 8g/100 mark.

[Featherman]

20-slot fractal boxes are basically free if you run fractals often. The only downside is that you cannot customize them.

Edited by Featherman, 14 January 2013 - 04:10 AM.

[draxynnic]

Didn't think of those. From what I've seen, there's no way to convert relics into gold or vice versa, so the 'price' is essentially the opportunity cost on what else you could get for the relics - which is hard to measure in gold terms. If that really is your best use for fractal relics and you have them in sufficient quantity, then obviously you'd get those, and then you can get mules and fit them out with fractal boxes for 8 gems (~12s) per slot.

So my order is essentially unchanged except for the boxes in question, and if the gem price drops below 1g25s/100 then you'd never buy influence with gold. Running enough fractals to begin regarding 150-relic boxes as essentially free would be a significant time investment, though.

[Featherman]

Depends on the fractals level, skill, etc. At higher levels 2-3 dailies would yield 1 uncommon box and a varying, but significant, of gold.

[draxynnic]

Which is still about 10 runs to fully kit out a character (let alone a whole account worth of characters), and those same fractal relics could get you forty shards, about 15 skill points, a Gift of Ascension, or nearly halfway to an exotic back slot (which can be upgraded to an ascended back slot item with skill points, the gift, and condensed mist essence). I'm sure it's possible to get to a spot where you're running fractals for other reasons and buying bags with fractal relics is essentially free, but I'd regard that as a special case.

One additional effect that would have, though, is making additional bag slots a little more viable - at 400 gems for a bag slot, if you do have an essentially free 20-slot bag to drop into that slot, they actually become cost-equivalent to expanding your personal bank at 600gems/30 slots. Still falls well behind the 800gems/100 slots you'd get from buying mule characters, but if you want the convenience, you could do it that way.

[Featherman]

You could do both. Buy a character and give it fractal boxes.

[Kor]

Thanks draxynnic for taking the time to do your calculations.  You may want to have someone promote your post to the front page; I know I'd want to see that information if I didn't already know it.

[AKGeo]

So it's still cheaper to buy the guild banks...may as well just make a few more guilds. The problem arises when you run out of non-account-bound items to throw in those guild banks. I guess that's where the mules come from. And for people like me who can't just let a character sit without playing it, mules just don't do well for me.

[draxynnic]

I think there is a limit to how many guilds you can be a member of, and if you're going to be a member of any real guilds rather than having a bunch of dummy guilds that only exist for storage, you might reach that limit quickly.

I'm inclined to play a character rather than simply muling it myself, but that's where the convenience factor comes in (I can't calculate the value of a slot that's more convenient to use, after all, and expanding the personal bank does have its dividends there). The way I handled it in GW1 is that I kept all of my characters fully loaded while not being played, while keeping enough space in my stash so I could clear enough inventory into the stash when playing a character to be able to, well, play without running out of space too quickly.

However, GW1 did have the advantage here that you always started and ended a session close to a bank, while GW2 can have times when a character spends extended periods of time in the wilderness. Still, with a bit of management, the principle of having characters taking turns can still apply - but that might be where you start thinking about takign other options for convenience. (In fact, this might be where taking 18-slot bags is worth considering, as long as you're not using them to replace 15-slot bags.)

I should also point out that it seems I was mistaken on one of my figures - getting a trove apparently gives an extra 100 slots rather than increasing the guild stash TO a hundred, making it more like 40s/slot. Still more expensive than converting gold to gems to buy personal bank tabs at current gem prices, though. Another thing I noticed when I got home and looked at the Black Lion Trading Company is that the average price of gems is actually currently 1s65c - this doesn't really change any of the conclusions, but it does push 18-slot bags closer to being competitive as long as they're not replacing anything bigger than a 8-slot bag.

[ReMarkable91]

draxynnic, on 14 January 2013 - 05:14 AM, said:

Didn't think of those. From what I've seen, there's no way to convert relics into gold or vice versa,

Relics = Sp = Gold.

[Bottoms_Up]

AKGeo, on 15 January 2013 - 11:54 AM, said:

So it's still cheaper to buy the guild banks...may as well just make a few more guilds.

You can be in multiple guilds but you can only create one guild per account. I've tried

[azurrei]

Bottoms_Up, on 16 January 2013 - 01:12 AM, said:

You can be in multiple guilds but you can only create one guild per account. I've tried

I have 3 personal guilds...I think you are doing something wrong.

[Bottoms_Up]

azurrei, on 16 January 2013 - 01:56 AM, said:

I have 3 personal guilds...I think you are doing something wrong.

Yes indeed, 'Stand down' before you can create a new guild. There we go - but guild name already taken!

[draxynnic]

ReMarkable91, on 16 January 2013 - 01:07 AM, said:

Relics = Sp = Gold.

Unless there's something I've missed, there are a few other steps in there, and most recipes that involve spending skill points also involve having a bunch of other things that the contribution of the skill point itself is possibly negligible. So while I acknowledge the possibility, I stand by my conclusion that the value of fractal relics is nonzero but hard to analyse in gold terms.

[ReMarkable91]

draxynnic, on 16 January 2013 - 03:16 AM, said:

Unless there's something I've missed, there are a few other steps in there, and most recipes that involve spending skill points also involve having a bunch of other things that the contribution of the skill point itself is possibly negligible. So while I acknowledge the possibility, I stand by my conclusion that the value of fractal relics is nonzero but hard to analyse in gold terms.

There are tons of forge recipes that give u lots of proffit , t5 to t6 mats is a little bit RNG luck . So if you feel like allways unlucky there are still other forge recipe that give 100 % profit. Let's say Core -> Lodestone let's take Onyx as example. For doing it 5 times u need 3 SP.(5 Crystals) rest of recipe is 2 lodestones(let.s say 87,5 x2 = 1,75 G) + 1 bottle of whine(npc 26 S) and a dust 6 S that makes an total of 2 G 2S + 0,6 sp for Onyx lodestone(no risk 100 %). Onyx lodestone itself cost 2,5 G. After TP tax would be 2,25 G so let's say 20 S proffit for 0,6 Sp. 1 G for 3 Sp.(not to even talk about the discount legendary hunters can get this way).

Then offcourse you can also make weapon with SP , every Mystic weapon costs 50 SP and make a good proffit. There are also alot more unknown weapons (http://wiki.guildwar...rge/Other_Items) that can be forged.
But those are also obtainable by trowing 4 Rares or exotics in forge.So most or not proffitable

[Gli]

draxynnic, on 14 January 2013 - 04:04 AM, said:

Hrrrmn. So to set some fixed gold prices for storage:

50 slot guild bank: 2500 influence -> 5g/50 slots -> 10s/slot if you do it purely through buying influence.
Extra 50 slots: 20000 influence -> 40g/50slots -> 80s/slot if you do it purely through buying influence.

The second 'tier' of guild storage gives 100 extra slots, so it's only 40s per slot.

[draxynnic]

Yeah, I noticed that yesterday and thought I'd posted a correction, but I don't see it. Must have slipped my mind leading me to THINK I'd said it when I actually hadn't.

Still more expensive than muling, though. There's also, for the sake of completeness, an additional 100 slots on top of that you can get for 30k influence (60s/slot if you buy the influence).

@ReMarkable91: Part of 'hard to analyse' here is I'm trying not to go too in-depth into tracking the behaviour of the markets, since they're liable to change over time (the gem-gold price is one you simply can't avoid with this analysis, but apart from that...) and recipes involving transmutation also require looking at the values of other components that can also fluctuate.

At the moment, though, it looks like the value of a fractal relic is roughly one silver. So a fractal box is 1g50s for 20 slots. That gives the following approximate figures:

Upgrading from:
18-slot: 75s/slot
15-slot: 30s/slot
12-slot: 18s75c/slot
10-slot: 15s/slot
8-slot: 12s50c/slot

So with this estimate, it's cost-effective to get fractal boxes as long as they're not replacing anything bigger than a 12-slot. Otherwise... get a mule. It would probably then be most cost-effective to get fractal boxes to fill the new bag slots, though (or, more practically speaking, put the fractal boxes onto whichever character needs the inventory most, and give the mule the storage items you jut replaced with fractal boxes).

This analysis stll has the assumption that the player is playing fractals often enough to consider fractal relics a byproduct of normal play to be monetised, though, rather than something that they'd need to grind fractals specifically to get.