Of Sigils and Chance

Today, I've been running something of an experiment, with the help of that mean little genie, Zomorros.

Zomorros will eat 4 major sigils, and there is a reported 20% chance he will spit up a random superior sigil in return. Alternatively, and most likely, he'll just spit up another random major sigil.

Some superior sigils sell for silly amounts on the Trading Post. You can probably see where I'm going with this. Bearing in mind that I knew from the outset that I was likely to make a loss, I decided to throw some gold at this for the sake of mild curiosity. And possibly science. Or something. That gold was just burning a hole in my pocket anyway.

So, some numbers. I brought 400 major sigils of random on the cheap from the trading post. This is 100 guaranteed chances at getting something nice and expensive. This set me back 10 gold, 12 silver 72 copper in total - I used buy orders, which is why this all took a while. I then spent far too many minutes of my life splitting up stacks in my inventory, since the Mystic Forge window won't let me do it there. Fail!

I fed Zomorros 4 major sigils at a time, 100 times, and here are my results:

That is 79 major sigils, and 21 superior sigils. Of course, I then fed all of the major sigils I'd picked up from this back into the Mystic Forge until I didn't have enough left. This gave me 2 more superior sigils  in the end.

I ended up with the following superior sigils:

Centaur Slaying
Conjuration
Demon Slaying
Demon Summoning
Destroyer Slayer x 2
Elemental Slaying
Energy x 2
Hydromancy x 2
Ice
Impact
Luck x 2
Paralyzation
Purity
Restoration
Sorrow x 2
Strength
Wrath
Undead Slaying

Based off this alone, I stand to make 12 gold, 40 silver, 94 copper from current trading post prices if I sell all of the Superior Runes at the lowest sell offer, while factoring in the 15% tax on sales. Statistically speaking, 125 shots at the Mystic Forge is not a decent enough sample size to determine if this is actually worth any investment as a money making scheme. Bear in mind that I checked the TP prices of the results before publishing this post - and the TP changes constantly!

I did profit off this. By 2 gold 28 silver 22 copper. Seems a lot of effort for that amount!

If you are going to try this, bear in mind that it is like playing a lottery. I got lucky this time, but without that Superior Rune of strength (which at the lowest sell offer was over 4 gold!), I would have made a loss here.

So, in conclusion - it's risky, but you *can* profit from this. If you want to buy in bulk for cheaper, you could always invest in minor runes and upgrade them to major in the same way.

Also, maybe I'm not so unlucky in Guild Wars as I thought! :)

Infinite Regress

Fractals.

That controversial new area introduced into the game about 2 weeks ago.

I admit, I do enjoy playing them. They're innovative, and don't rely on lame mechanics to buff difficulty. At least at the lower areas.

That said - I have been staying out of them for the most part.

My connection hates the Fractals. And when it's not my connection, it's my computer. No reconnects in Fractals means that I'm not willing to waste my time in them.

I ventured in last night, with the aim of getting my monthly fractals done. The whole journey was permeated by a sinking feeling akin to that of watching a father chase his kids around with a power tool. You know it's not going to end well.

So, in a nutshell, I'm now on to level 3 Fractals. However, due to yet another crash and burn brought to you by Fractals (tm), I'm only on 6/7 for my Fractal monthly completion. Maybe some kind of 'fuuuuuu' picture would be appropriate here, but I've been burnt by Fractals and their lack of reconnect often enough now that I'm resigned to not being able to progress through them at a sensible rate. Like I'm resigned to having to empty out the cat litter tray every day. Plus, I can't be bothered to google a suitably amusing picture that encapsulates my feelings on this.

It probably shouldn't be that way, but there you go. I'll probably venture in once more to get my monthly done, and then I'll be back to boycotting them until reconnects are implemented for them like every other dungeon in the game.

WE ATEN'T DED

There has been some much exaggerated talk of WvW in the Far Shiverpeaks as being dead.

Personally, while I agree that we are struggling to drag people from PvE into WvW, as Granny Weatherwax would say - we aten't ded yet. We’re at least feebly kicking, by what I saw last night. This week, we're up against Fort Ranik and Gandara.

I had the honour last night of leading a small party of ‘Icicles’ (aka my fellow guildies from Ice Cold Elements [ICE]) as a little ninja squad for [TNA] on the Fort Ranik borderlands. Granted, we weren’t able to paint the borderlands blue, but I think we held our own. For the first time in a couple of weeks, our potential points at tick was actually on top at prime time, and we managed to rock the outmanned buff while defending Bay and Briar for that point tick. Yes, we did ultimately lose both – but we got our points, darnit!

Fort Ranik and Gandara can both field way more people than we can at the moment. Either that, or they somehow manage to be everywhere at once in force. Those folks need to lay off the caffeine or something. Or stop multiplying like rabbits. But I digress...

I guess the most epic fight of the evening for us was when we were attempting to defend Bluevale Camp from the Fort Ranik zerg. And sheesh, what a zerg! The fight went on for about 10 minutes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such numbers fighting over a mere supply camp before. It was like Fort Ranik were a bunch of crotchety old men, waving VERY big sticks and yelling at us to get off their lawn. With Ballistas. Yeah, we lost the exchange - but sure was great fun!

At one stage, we managed to get the outer gates to Bay down. I hid in there when our assault failed, again partly due to our being somewhat outmanned. It took 15 minutes for Fort Ranik to find my hiding spot. I generally don't beleive there is such a thing as overkill ... but Fort Ranik, was it really necessary to send 5 people to execute me? That was a bit much. I broke a nail and everything.

Anyways, to tie this up - back to my original point. Yes, Far Shiverpeaks isn't on top in WvW at the moment. However, the solid core remaining will fight tooth and nail regardless of some silly point score. And we take our victories where we can - and have a bloody good time doing it to.

If you aren't doing so already - stop paying attention to a number. Get into WvW, and fight for your server! If I see you complaining in LA about how rubbish Far Shiverpeaks is at WvW and I've never seen you in WvW ever before, I hereby reserve the right to kick you all the way back into whatever fractal you've spent the last 2 weeks of your gaming life crawling around in.

Zomorros is an ass.

I like gold. It's shiny. It's also pretty easy to make in Guild Wars 2. However, today I noticed a revenue stream that was finally worth playing with. Usually, it's not worth it at all. Because Zomorros is an ass.

Yup, I got into upgrading materials in the mystic forge. For the paltry sum of 5 Philosopher's Stones, 50 Intricate Totems, 1 Elaborate Totem and 5 Piles of Crystalline Dust, I saw I could earn quite a profit.

So I did. About 15 times. And then Zomorros decided he wasn't my friend any more, and started only spitting out 5 Elaborate Totems a pop, which was just under what I needed to break even. So I'm no longer speaking to him, which may or may not be harsh since he just helped me to make about 15 gold in about 15 minutes. It could have been more if I'd been a bit less impatient with my listing prices.

For anyone looking into this, be warned - it's risky. Especially when upgrading from a tier 5 to tier 6 material. Again, because Zomorros is an ass. I only did it today because I was able to buy Intricate Totems for 1 silver 99 copper, and sell off the Elaborate Totems for over 31 silver each. And it was only worth it if Zomorros would give back at least 6 Elaborate Totems a pop. It's a gamble, but a low risk one for the margins involved today.

Thank you Zomorros. You're still an ass, but you did good today.