Guild Wars 2 PvP Gear Crafting Basic Guide

Guild Wars 2 PvP Gear Crafting Basic Guide by Ratboy

What is the Mystic Forge?

You can find the Mystic Forge near the Tournament Master in the Heart of the Mists.
The Mystic Forge let’s you combine multiple materials and tokens into a PvP item.

In order to craft an item at the Mystic Forge you will need the following

1.) A Rank Token (Rabbit, Deer, Tiger, Free Tournament etc..)
These items determine the range of graphical tiers your item
can fall under.

2.) An Item Token (Sword, Greatsword, Light Helm, Heavy Glove etc..)
These items dictate what type of item you will receive.

3.) An Arcane Fragment (Arcane Orb, Arcane Crystal and Arcane Sliver)
These items decide exactly which tier in the range (decided by your rank token)
that you will receive! (Not 100% guaranteed to receive a particular tier)

4.) Arcane Powder
A necessary reagent for crafting PvP items.

What to expect when you craft an item

The item you receive is based on the materials you decide to use. Your Item Token will completely dictate which “type” of item you get. Meaning, a Sword token will yield a Sword and a Light Helm token will yield a Light Helm. Which Sword or Light Helm depends on the other reagents.

Firstly, the Rank Token will place your item within a specified range of “item tier”

Second, the Arcane Fragment you use will determine which item tier you actually receive. To better illustrate this I’ll use an example:

I want to create the item PvP Seer’s Mask which is a Light Helm. “Seer’s” is the graphic tier I’m aiming for here. I know from previous experience that using a Free Tournament Token has given me a “Seer’s” item. Therefore that item must fall into the possible graphic tiers for that rank token.

So I buy a Light Helm Token. Now I take my Light Helm Token and Free Tournament Token to the Mystic Forge. After entering both items, I also add Arcane Powder which is always necessary. Now I have the choice of entering an Arcane Orb, Arcane Crystal or Arcane Sliver.

Now, the best way to look at this is to picture 3 possible outcomes for your item. Arcane Orb being likely to produce the “worst” result, Arcane Crystal being the second best and Arcane Sliver being the best! It’s not exactly this cut and dry though. If you’ve gotten an item with an Arcane Orb for a set that you want to complete, continue using orb’s with different item tokens until you’ve completed it! When using Arcane Crystal there is also a chance that you will receive the same item as produced by an Arcane Sliver which again could be good or bad depending on what item you’re going for. In my experience I’ve seen this “lucky” reward about 10% of the time using crystal’s.

Here are some numbers via greyf0x’s post:
Orb = 80% chance of common, 20% chance of uncommon
Crystal = 80% uncommon, 20% rare.
Sliver = 80% rare, 20% exotic
These numbers are not proven but seem to be very likely

So, back to my PvP Seer’s Mask! The three Light Armor tiers for a Free Tournament Token are “Rubric” “Seer’s” and “Armageddon” respectively. Where an Orb is likely to give you a Rubric item here, a crystal often makes Seer’s and a sliver resulting in an Armageddon piece. So I load my Light Helm Token, Free Tournament Token, Arcane Powder and Arcane Crystal into the Mystic Forge and hit create. After a few seconds of magic I receive PvP Seer’s Mask! (as long as I’m not too lucky, otherwise I’d get bumped up to an Armageddon helm).

Copper, Silver and Gold rank chests! (Quality over quantity!)

A lot of people are wondering what the difference between these items is and if it’s worth it to spend 1000 glory on a Gold chest just to receive the same items as spending 200 on a copper chest. The short answer is, yes, it’s worth it!

While you may receive the same exact items from a 200 glory point chest that you get from a 1000 glory point chest, the difference is in the materials that you can salvage from your rewards!

Salvaging items from a copper chest will not give you as good of crafting materials as if you had salvaged the same exact items from a gold chest.

What I mean by “good” crafting materials is that copper chest items will often salvage into Arcane Powder and very very rarely result in Arcane Crystal or Arcane Sliver, but salvaging items from a Gold chest will often reward these materials.

Now when it comes to the actual items inside the chest, you may also want to keep them. That’s cool too! These items are simliar to crafted items in that they have a graphic tier range that’s determined by the rank they’re associated with. So “Rabbit” chests (no matter which color) give certain graphic tiers, while “Deer” chests (of any color!) give items of a higher graphic tier, cool !!!