Are you short on gold and still want to get a Legendary? Well, you might want to focus your attention on Generation One Legendary Weapons as some of them can be cheap, but they do take a huge time investment.
Before we begin, a pro tip would be to take things slow, as getting those items is not cheap, and they will take a good chunk of time and gold investment.
What are Generation One Legendary Weapons
These weapons are the first set of Legendaries that were added to the game. There is one of them for each weapon that exists in the game, with the exception of the great sword, where you have three weapons, Twilight, Sunrise, and Eternity.
Just like any item with the Legendary grade, those weapons can change stats at any given time without paying a single copper. Moreover, you can copy legendary weapons across your characters, so basically, they can be used on as many characters at the same time, given that they can use the weapon.
Changing the skin on these weapons will not cost any transmutation charges, and you won’t need any Upgrade Extractors to remove Sigils and Runes.
How to get Generation One Legendary Weapons
There are two ways you can get the first generation of Legendaries in Guild Wars 2.
- Buying them off the Trading Post.
- Crafting them yourself.
If you finally manage to obtain a Gen 1 legendary, equipping it will make it bound to your account and add it to the Armory. This means that you will no longer have the ability to place it in the Trading Post.
Anyways, to get a Generation One Legendary Weapon through crafting, you have to obtain the following Gifts and materials, and then place them in the Mystic Forge.
- Gift of Mastery
- Gift of Fortune
- Weapon Precursor
- Weapon-specific Gift
Step 1: Getting the Gift of Mastery
To get the Gift of Mastery, you have to obtain and combine the following four items in the Mystic Forge.
- Gift of Exploration
- Gift of Battle
Bloodstone Shard
Bloodstone Shards can be purchased for 
Obsidian Shards
- Purchased for or converted from various currencies
- Acquired from PvP Reward Tracks and WvW Reward Tracks
Check the wiki for more information on how to get Obsidian Shards.
Gift of Exploration
The Gift of Exploration can be obtained by exploring all the maps in Core Tyria. This is probably the most time-consuming task that you have to do while farming for those weapons, but this process can be accelerated by using Mounts.
This process involves going around all the maps in the five regions of Core Tyria, Ascalon, Kryta, Maguuma Jungle, Shiverpeak Mountains, and Ruins of Orr. You have to find all the Points of Interest, Waypoints, and Vistas, and complete all the Renown Hearts and Hero Points to obtain 100% map completion.
Any map within Core Tyria that is accessible only through an expansion or the Living World, does not contribute to map completion. An example of that would be Lake Doric.
This process can be done once per character but can be done on an infinite number of characters, and each 100% map completion will reward you with 2 Gifts of Exploration.
Gift of Battle
A Gift of Battle can be obtained from the Gift of Battle Item Reward Track in WvW. Completing this reward track can also be time-consuming, especially if you are not fond of this game mode. To fastest way to complete the world track is by making sure that you are always at Tier 6 participation so you can get the most experience every 5 minutes.
You can also make use of Potion of WvW Rewards that can be obtained from completing WvW dailies and give a considerable amount of Reward Track experience.
Step 2: Getting the Gift of Fortune
The Gift of Fortune is probably the most expensive item to get for Gen 1 Legendaries depending on which weapon you are crafting (Precursors can be more expensive). However, to get it, you need to place all those four items in the Mystic Forge:
- Gift of Magic
- Gift of Might
Globs of Ectoplasm
The best way to get Globs of Ectoplasm is by salvaging Rare and Exotic Gear. Alternatively, you can buy them off the Trading Post.
Mystic Clovers
There are multiple ways in which you can obtain Mystic Clovers, some of those ways include using the Mystic Forge, buying them from the Fractals of the Mists, or even buying them for Astral Acclaim from the Wizard’s Vault. To find out every single way that you can obtain them, check out our dedicated guide linked below.
Gift of Might
Combine the following material in the Mystic Forge:
- 250 Vicious Fangs
- 250 Armored Scales
- 250 Vicious Claws
- 250 Ancient Bones
Gift of Magic
Combine the following material in the Mystic Forge:
- 250 Vials of Powerful Blood
- 250 Powerful Venom Sacs
- 250 Elaborate Totems
- 250 Piles of Crystalline Dust
Unlike the Gift of Condensed Magic and Gift of Condensed Might, you don’t need recipes for the Gift of Magic and Gift of Might.
Step 3: Getting the Precursor
There are four ways in which you can obtain Gen 1 precursors, and they are as follows:
Buying it from the Trading Post
Since Generation One Precursors are not bound to account (Unless obtained from Astral Rewards), unlike the Generation Two counterpart, they can be sold at the Trading Post.
You would be surprised as to how cheap a Gen 1 Precursors can be, so the best option would be to actually buy them because the other methods are just not feasible.
Crafting it in the Mystic Forge
You can get a Precursor of your choice from the Mystic Forge if you want to gamble your way to getting it. The way it works is by combining four Exotic or Rare weapons of the same type to get a low chance of obtaining the precursor of this type. Keep note that Exotics have a higher chance of giving you a precursor than Rares do.
Getting Lucky with a drop
You can get a Generation One Legendary precursor as a drop with an extremely low drop rate. I’ve been playing Guild Wars 2 since beta, and I have only seen one precursor drop, and it was Carcharias, which at the time was worth 50 gold. Talk about luck.
Anyway, I don’t recommend using this method to farm the precursor of choice.
Collecting it through Achievements
This was not an option in the game previously, but after the first expansion Heart of Thorns, ArenaNet added a way to get Precursors by Achievements and crafting. For the first generation of legendaries, you have three Achievement collections that you have to complete before you can actually obtain the Gen 1 precursor.
Simply open your Achievements tab, and navigate to Collections > Legendary Weapons. From there you will see all the precursors that you can obtain through achievements, but they will all be locked. To unlock a specific collection, you have to first unlock the necessary masteries found in Mastery Menu > Central Tyria > Legendary Crafting. Once you have the masteries unlocked, head over to Lion’s Arch speak to Grandmaster Craftsman Hobbs, and buy Vol. 1 of any precursor that you are trying to farm.
After completing Vol. 1, come back to Grandmaster Craftsman Hobbs and purchase the second volume, and so on. Generation One Precursors have three volumes, but other generations have more.
Step 4: Getting the Weapon Gift
Every Generation One Legendary Weapon will have its own unique Gift that needs to be crafted. However, all of them share some common material, so we will cover the same material and what items you might need in general for every Legendary.
To craft the Weapon-unique Gift, you will need to place the following items in the Mystic Forge.
- 100 Icy Runestones
- A Superior Sigil (Unique to each weapon)
- Crafting Material Gift (Unique to each weapon)
- Themed Gift (Unique to each weapon)
Note: I will add a list of all the Gen 1 legendaries and what unique gifts and materials they need at the end of this step.
Icy Runestones
You can get Icy Runestones by visiting Rojan the Penitent in Frostgorge Sound. Each Icy Runestone costs 1 gold and you need 100 of them, so they will cost you a total of 100 gold.
Note that Rojan the Penitent won’t be available during the Jormag meta event, and if the event fails, he will not sell any items.
Superior Sigil
Every weapon needs a special Sigil to craft the Weapon Gift, and they can all be purchased from the Trading Post.
Crafting Material Gift
The Crafting Material Gift could be any of the following:
| Gift | Crafting Proficiency | Cost for crafting |
|---|---|---|
| Gift of Metal | Level 400 Weaponsmith |
|
| Gift of Wood | Level 400 Huntsman |
|
| Gift of Energy | Level 400 Artificer |
|
For those, you have to buy the recipes once to permanently unlock them on your whole account. Each recipe costs 10 gold and they can be purchased from Miyani who is located in Lion’s Arch next to the Mystic Forge.
Themed Gift
Themed gifts are unique to every Gen 1 Legendary Weapon, however, the common thing between them is that they need level 400 ranking from various crafting professions, a recipe that costs 10 gold and can be purchased from Miyani, and a Dungeon Gift that can be purchased for 500 Tales of Dungeon Delving.
| Legendary Weapon | Sigil | Precursor | Crafting | Themed Gift |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frostfang (Axe) | Superior Sigil of Ice | Tooth of Frostfang | 
|
Gift of Ice |
| Incinerator (Dagger) | Superior Sigil of Flame | Spark |
|
Vial of Liquid Flame |
| The Moot (Mace) | Superior Sigil of Energy | The Energizer |
|
Gift of Entertainment |
| Quip (Pistol) | Superior Sigil of Stamina | Chaos Gun | 
|
Gift of Entertainment |
| Meteorlogicus (Scepter) | Superior Sigil of Air | Storm | 
|
Gift of Weather |
| Bolt (Sword) | Superior Sigil of Air | Zap |
|
Gift of Lightning |
| The Minstrel (Focus) | Superior Sigil of Energy | The Bard |
|
Gift of Music |
| The Flameseeker Prophecies (Shield) | Superior Sigil of Battle | The Chosen |
|
Gift of History |
| Rodgort (Torch) | Superior Sigil of Fire | Rodgort’s Flame |
|
Vial of Liquid Flame |
| Howler (Warhorn) | Superior Sigil of Accuracy | Howl |
|
Wolf Statue |
| Sunrise (Greatsword) | Superior Sigil of Strength | Dawn |
|
Gift of Light |
| Twilight (Greatsword) | Superior Sigil of Blood | Dusk |
|
Gift of Darkness |
| Eternity (Greatsword) | Sunrise | |||
| The Juggernaut (Hammer) | Superior Sigil of Benevolence | The Colossus |
|
Vial of Quicksilver |
| Kudzu (Longbow) | Superior Sigil of Celerity | Leaf of Kudzu |
|
Gift of Nature |
| The Predator (Rifle) | Superior Sigil of Force | The Hunter |
|
Gift of Stealth |
| The Dreamer (Short bow) | Superior Sigil of Purity | The Lover |
|
Unicorn Statue |
| The Bifrost (Staff) | Superior Sigil of Nullification | The Legend |
|
Gift of Color |
| Frenzy (Harpoon Gun) | Superior Sigil of Rage | Rage |
|
Gift of Water |
| Kamohoali’i Kotaki (Spear) | Superior Sigil of Agony | Carcharias |
|
Shark Statue |
| Kraitkin (Trident) | Superior Sigil of Venom | Venom |
|
Eel Statue |
Step 5: Forging the Generation One Legendary Weapon
Now it’s only a matter of putting everything together. Once you have the Gift of Mastery, Gift of Fortune, Weapon Precursor, and the Weapon-specific Gift, head over to the Mystic Forge, and place them all inside. Press on the Forge button and you are now Legendary!
