Greens

Unholy · September 30, 2021 at 3:32 PM

In an effort to expand upon the ever-growing knowledge base surrounding "pre-nerfs," I have put together this list with what is currently known about pre-nerf green (unique) weapons. Please see these other threads for their respective pre-nerf information: Weapons, Shield & Focus, Runes & Miscellaneous. The original thread on this topic (which showcases the initial discussion and some of the earlier findings) can be found here.

"Pre-nerf/Prenerf," usually refers to anything produced in-game before the release of Nightfall and that is also not able to be produced currently or since. There are exceptions and slight variations, of course, and these will be outlined in their respective threads.

As far as pre-nerfs go, green pre-nerfs are a relatively new discovery. Because of that, this list is still very much a work in progress and future updates and/or changes to what is believed to be true can and should be expected to happen. As with other pre-nerf threads, if you can provide proof of something not currently documented here (or proof against something that is), please feel free to contribute.

There are hundreds of different green weapons in the game. I'll start by narrowing it down:

Prophecies greens (with the exception of Deldrimor Talisman & War In Kryta greens) are all eligible to have a pre-nerf version.
Factions greens (with the exception of most Amulet of the Mists greens & most Winds Of Change greens) are eligible to have a pre-nerf version.
No Nightfall pre-nerf greens are currently known or believed to exist.
No Eye of the North pre-nerf greens are currently known or believed to exist.

Most non-green pre-nerf weapons have a single identifier: their stats.

Because green weapons always come with a pre-set "package," they have a few more things to take into consideration:

Stats
Mod Order
Color

A change in any of these is enough to be pre-nerf. Some greens may only have a change in one, while others show a change in all three.

In addition, some greens may also show different differences for the same item. Yes, you read that right.

While most greens will only have two versions (the pre-nerf and the current/post-nerf), some greens are known or believed to have three versions. This is because there were multiple updates that changed these items at different times (whether this was intentional or more of an unintended byproduct is unknown). For a green weapon to have three versions, it's currently believed that it must:

Show some kind of mod order change between the versions
AND
Show some kind of color change between the versions

Because of this, only some green staves from Factions (and Kepkhet's Refuge and Gorrel's Staff from Prophecies) are currently thought to have three versions, but other examples may exist.

A breakdown of the differences would look like this:

Current/post-nerf version: Current stats, mod order, and colors. Able to be dropped in-game still.
"Original"/pre-nerf/2nd version: These green items will have both a different color and a different mod order when compared to their current/post-nerf counterpart. These dropped from the time of their release until about a month or two before Nightfall.
Pre-nerf/3rd version: These green items will have the same color as their current counterpart, but the same mod order as the original pre-nerf. These dropped for the last month or two before the release of Nightfall.

A few confirmed examples of all 3 can be found in the list below.

The following is the list of greens currently known to have at least one pre-nerf version confirmed in-game. Please keep in mind that this list is incomplete. Additional entries will be added as they are discovered and confirmed.

CONFIRMED: 182 (45 Prophecies, 137 Factions)

This list is for potential pre-nerfs (those believed to have a pre-nerf version but have not yet been confirmed in-game).

Potential: 12 (0 Prophecies, 12 Factions)

This third chart lists all the remaining Prophecies & Factions greens which are thought to not have a pre-nerf version.

My reasoning for this, along with Oldschool Cool 's explanation for staves, is given here.

Explanation for Staff mod order changes and greens with no suspected prenerfs.

For martial weapons, wands & foci:

There are none confirmed to exist so far with a mod order change. (Arius' Sai is the strongest candidate to be an exception to this, but seems a one-off.) There is an old screenshot of the Bludgeoner hammer with a different mod order than the current one. However, this screenshot features the outdated 10/10 Sundering mod. Just before Factions, item drop tables were improved to offer higher quality mods. We also have an image from this time period of Gordac's Needle (which had a +3 energy mod and a different mod order) AND a proven Gordac's Needle pre-nerf currently. The pre-nerf has a +5 energy mod, and the same mod order as the current Needle. From this we can conclude that this particular update was retroactive in nature -- affecting all previously-created greens. This leaves only one remaining identifier: color.
When comparing the following greens to the base skin of the item, we can see no differences. For example: Thorgall's Shield uses the skin of a Tall Shield (which is dyeable, for what it's worth). Comparing Thorgall's to any given undyed Tall Shield shows no differences. There is no precedent in other confirmed pre-nerf greens of a dyed item turning into an undyed item. So, we can conclude that any green martial weapon, wand or focus without a mod order change (all of them, so far) that uses the base/undyed color of that item's skin will not have a pre-nerf version.

"But wait, what about staves?"

Some staves like Galigord's Stone Staff and Rago's Flame Staff look like they could have a pre-nerf, right? Their current mods/order match those of several pre-nerf staves found in Factions. So why can't we just flip the last two mods and assume they exist? Other SF staves like Willcrusher, Brohn's Staff and Gorrel's Staff all have mod order changes but no color changes (as they use the base skin). So we know mod order changes on SF staves are possible.
However, The Yakslapper (which has the same mod layout as Rago/Galigord's Staff), has a color change but no mod order change. We know from other pre-nerf staves that a color change will always precede a mod order change. (In the case of +30+30 staves from Factions, it's thought the two 30s simply swap, despite not really appearing different). If The Yakslapper's color change is not forcing a mod order change, then it's reasonable to think that the only other identifier left for these staves is color. And, similar to martial weapons above, these staves are using the default color for their skins, and so no pre-nerf should be possible.

That was super wordy, but I'm not sure how else to explain it. May update in the future.

The following is Oldschool Cool 's explanation for staff changes, pulled from the original discussion thread linked at the top of this post.

"Ok some update on the mod order thing :

History :

When the green staves from Proph and Fact were first dropped most of them had a 20% attribute-specific HSR (very few of them had a 10% global HSR or even no HSR at all but I will talk about those later).

The 25th October 2006 update (corresponding to the Nightfall release) changed all the existing green staves (with the exception of some low level staves from Shing-Jea) :

Example of Kepkhet's Refuge :

Original Staff :

I was only able to find an image in french but you can easily translate it to 20% HSR protection / 20% HCT protection

"Updated staff"

Current Staff

How to interpret it :

The Original Staff use the same mod order as the Current staff, but the Updated staff use a different mod order. I have been able to find 20+ picture of the Original staves (with attribute specific HSR) and the pattern is always the same. We can conclude that the update that changed the attribute-specific HSR into a global HSR also messed-up the mod order of the affected staves.

Another interesting pattern is to look at how the mod order was affected, once again there is a very clear pattern :

Original Kepkhet : +20% ench // +5e

Updated Kepkhet : +5e // +20% ench

Original Wenlauss' Faith : +30hp // +5e

Updated Wenlauss' Faith : +5e // +30hp

Original Kaolin staves : +1/20% attribute // +30hp

Updated Kaolin staves : +30hp // +1/20% attribute

Original Stonereaper : +1/20% curse // +5e

Updated Stonereaper : +5e // +1/20% cruse

Original Stoneweaver : +20%ench//+5AR

Updated Stoneweaver : +5AR//+20%ench

The Original Staff is always modded : Staff wrap // Staff head

The Updated Staff is always modded : Staff head // Staff wrap

In my opinion the code/script that updated the attribute-specific HSR into a global HSR also had the unintentional side effect to change the mod order of the staves to Staff head // Staff wrap.

How does this help us find other potential prenerfs :

Based on the current pattern we can say that :

* The staves modded Wrap//Head will most likely have a prenerf version modded Head//Wrap

* The staves already modded Head//Wrap or the staves with a duplicate mod (+30hp//+30hp or +5AR//+5AR) most likely won't have a prenerf version with a diff mod order.

Name	Campaign	Prenerf with a diff mod order
Gardock's Staff	Proph	Most likely not
Ivor's Staff	Proph	Most likely not
Bortak's Bone Staff	Proph	Most likely not
Galigord's Stone Staff	Proph	Most likely not
Vokur's Staff	Proph	Most likely not
The Darkwish	Faction	Most likely not
Woe Spreader	Faction	Most likely not
Amadis' Air Staff	Faction	Most likely not
Bazzr's Staff	Faction	Most likely not
Ssyn's Staff	Faction	Most likely not
Sulmeng's Staff	Faction - Low lvl	Most likely not
Miki's Staff	Faction - Low lvl	Most likely not
Tin Dao's Staff	Faction - Low lvl	Most likely not
Ssuns' Staff	Faction	Very likely
Milefaun's Staff	Faction	Very likely
Swiftspell's Staff	Faction	Very likely
Talous' Staff	Faction	Very likely
Arbor's Earth Staff	Faction	Very likely
Kunvie's Air Staff	Faction	Very likely

Of course nothing is ever simple with Guild Wars, so here is Part 2 : the edge cases !

As I mentioned earlier not all the original staves were using a 20% attribute specific HSR. Some green staves don't have an HSR but instead have a 20% reduce condition (similar to what could happen on prenerf gold staves) :

- Gorrel's Staff

- Brohn's Staff

- Villnar's Staff

Some other staff do have an HSR and are using an Inherent -20% condition duration (similar to what can happen on OS staves) :

- Gardock Staff

- The Yakslapper

- Ivor's staff

- Fleshweaver

- Willcrusher

Let's take the example of Gorrel Staff :

Original Staff :

26433-gorrel-jpeg

From a french website, the picture was uploaded in february 2006 (so before the NF updated).

Updated Staff

Current Staff

How to interpret it :

On side note we can notice is the exact wording on the Original staff is different. Before 2006 the "Reduce X condition by 20%" was called "Fast recovery condition X" and in the same way the "+33% X condition duration" was called "Lengthen condition X". All the text were updated and as far as I can tell this didn't impact the greens in anyway.

With the currently known prenerf we can see the following pattern :

Original Gorrel : Inscription // (Head or wrap) // (Head or wrap) // Inherent

Updated Gorrel : Inscription // Inherent // (Head or wrap) // (Head or wrap)

Original Brohn : Inscription // (Head or wrap) // (Head or wrap) // Inherent

Updated Brohn : Inscription // Inherent // (Head or wrap) // (Head or wrap)

Original Willcrusher : HSR // Head // Wrap // Inherent

Updated Willcrusher : HSR // Inherent // Head // Wrap

The following staves have prenerf version with a different color but with no stat change :

* Yakslapper : Inherent//HSR//Head//Wrap

We can make the following guess :

- The HSR update seems to have affected all the staves no matter if they actually had an HSR or not (cf. mod order change on Brohn and Gorrel)

- The Inherent and the HSR (or the inscription for the staves that don't have an HSR) are always displayed before the staff Head and Wrap.

How does this help us find other potential prenerfs :

* Gardock's staff, Ivor's Staff, Villnar's staff and Fleshweaver are unlikely to have a prenerf version with a different mod order"

In addition to the above examples from Oldschool Cool, I have also found the following, either matching or adding to what's said here.

An image of Gorrel's Staff posted to Guru one day after Sorrow's Furnace was added to the game, matching the French example above.

An English image of the original Kepkhet's before the global HSR update, matching the French example above.

Images of Talous' Staff and Orosen's Staff, also before the global HSR update.

Since posting the chart above in the original thread, Woe Spreader, Talous' Staff, Gardock's Staff and Ssyn's Staff have all been confirmed. The mod order change (or lack of) matches what was proposed in the chart.

Until proven otherwise, these do not/should not have a pre-nerf version:

Note: I have been wrong about a few items before. If you have one of the items below and you think it may be different in some way, please let me know and I'll check it out.

Profession	Weapon Type	Name
Prophecies	Prophecies	Prophecies
Warrior	Sword	Grognar's Blade
	Sword	Grognar's Sword
	Sword	Victo's Blade
	Hammer	Bludgeoner
	Hammer	The Ice Breaker
	Hammer	Malinon's Malign Hammer
	Hammer	Malinon's Skull Crusher
	Hammer	Thorgall's Stone Smasher
	Axe	Razorstone
	Axe	Tanzit's Cleaver
	Axe	Totem Axe
	Axe	Victo's Battle Axe
	Shield	Grognar's Defender
	Shield	Malinon's Shield
	Shield	Tanzit's Defender
	Shield	Thorgall's Shield
	Shield	Victo's Bulwark
Ranger	Bow	Boulderbeard's Shortbow
	Bow	Drago's Flatbow
	Bow	Drago's Vampiric Flatbow
	Bow	Elswyth's Longbow
	Bow	Elswyth's Recurve Bow
	Bow	Forgerunner
	Bow	Gargash's Recurve Bow
	Bow	Graygore's Shortbow
	Bow	Graygore's Zealous Shortbow
	Bow	Rotwing Recurve Bow
	Bow	Stinger
	Bow	Stoneherder's Flatbow
	Bow	Tarnok's Longbow
	Bow	Tarnok's Recurve Bow
	Bow	Thornbeard's Horned Bow
Monk	Wand	Gordac's Holy Rod
	Wand	Ivor's Smiting Rod
	Focus	Ivor's Icon
	Focus	Wroth's Icon
Elementalist	Staff	Galigord's Stone Staff
	Staff	Rago's Flame Staff
	Wand	Flint's Wand
	Focus	Milius' Eye
Necromancer	Staff	Morgriff's Staff
	Staff	Villnar's Staff
	Wand	Morgriff's Scepter
	Wand	Villnar's Claw
	Focus	Gordac's Hook Blood
	Focus	Villnar's Glove
Mesmer	Wand	Garbok's Cane
	Wand	Korvald's Cane
	Focus	The Rockmolder
~~~~~~~~~ Factions	~~~~~~~~~~ Factions	~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Factions
Multiple	Wand	Wayward Wand - all except: -Domination/Inspiration -Illusion/Inspiration -Divine/Healing -Divine/Protection -Spawning/Restoration
	Focus	Straw Effigy (all)
Warrior	Sword	Kanaxai's Edge
	Sword	Shiro's Sword
	Hammer	Gavel of the Nephilim
	Hammer	Hanjuu's Bludgeoner (low-level)
	Axe	Dragoncrest Axe
	Axe	Kanaxai's Axe
	Axe	Cho Wei's Axe (low-level)
	Shield	Exalted Aegis (all)
	Shield	Geoffer's Bulwark
	Shield	Reefclaw's Refuge
	Shield	Sunreach's Shield
Ranger	Bow	Ironwing Flatbow
	Bow	Ironwing Longbow
	Bow	Urgoz's Longbow
	Bow	Ahvha's Longbow (low-level)
	Bow	Jin's Hornbow (low-level)
Monk	Wand	Stormray
	Focus	Miella's Focus
	Focus	Rien's Sacrifice
	Focus	Feng's Focus (low-level)
Elementalist	Wand	Whyk's Wand
	Wand	Auri's Wand (low-level)
	Focus	Chung's Focus
	Focus	The Windcatcher
Necromancer	Wand	The Deathkeeper (low-level)
	Wand	Yingko's Claw (low-level)
	Focus	Konrru's Fervor
	Focus	Plaguebinder
Mesmer	Staff	Sulmeng's Staff (low-level)
	Wand	Phi's Wisdom
	Wand	Baozo's Wand (low-level)
Assassin	Dagger	Ceremonial Daggers
	Dagger	Darkroot's Daggers
	Dagger	Lou's Karambits
	Dagger	Shiro's Blades
	Dagger	Ungues of the Oni
	Dagger	Pei's Blades (low-level)
Ritualist	Staff	Tin Dao's Staff (low-level)
	Focus	Quansong's Focus
	Focus	Tattered Fan

Greens with documented retroactive changes:

PyroLobster · October 4, 2021 at 6:21 PM

Outstanding work!

Capitalist · October 4, 2021 at 10:14 PM

Hot damn that is comprehensive. Nice work !

Kabong · October 5, 2021 at 7:55 PM

sapmeacztiancgular

Forty Second Rogue · October 5, 2021 at 7:58 PM

Fabulatastic!

Thanks for all the hard work , great reference piece.

Capitalist · October 6, 2021 at 5:13 AM

Quote from Kabong

sapmeacztiancgular

What build is that?

Kabong · October 6, 2021 at 5:46 AM

Quote from Capitalist

What build is that?

Flourish Hammer. Good times.

Quote from Forty Second Rogue

Fabulatastic!

that's gotta be either Fabulotastic or Fabulantastic. I think the 1st is better. the other sounds like a high-grade malignancy to me.

Unholy · October 6, 2021 at 11:21 PM

Almost all images have been updated to the newer format & higher quality. They should all be clickable now too.

Went through and corrected the counts for confirmed and potential greens. Also fixed some images that had the wrong item shown...

Added 10 new items to the list!

Wenslauss' Chalice -- All Tombs greens (that should have a prenerf) are now confirmed!
Kaolin Accursed Staff (2nd version) -- All 3 Kaolin Accurseds are now confirmed.
Spiritgarden's Repose (2nd version) -- All 3 Spiritgarden's are now confirmed.
Ghial's Staff (3rd version) -- All 3 Ghial's now confirmed.
Kenrii's Sorrow (3rd version) -- All 3 Kenrii's now confirmed.
Talous' Staff (2nd version)
Zarnas' Wrath -- One of the very few greens that had a specific mention about a color change on its wiki page long ago. Finally confirmed after all this time.
Ssyn's Staff
Siska's Staff (2nd version) -- Color swap on this one seems to match the color swap on Ssyn's Staff. Confirming the old screenshot we found for the stat swap.
Snapjaw's Powerstone -- All three storm artifact pre-nerfs are now confirmed! Colors here match those of The Brimstone (pre & post).

There should be just 5 left to go for Prophecies and a lot left still for Factions. The remaining confirmed items with "TBA" still are ones I've personally confirmed in-game, but are either customized or not mine. Will work on getting images for them.

Thanks, lads

Unholy · November 10, 2021 at 8:34 PM

Added 3 new confirmations to the list:

Fleshweaver (necro staff, prophecies): prenerf color matches the proposed (in the original research thread) prenerf color found in an old screenshot. Stats, order and icons are all identical.
Gardock's Staff (monk staff, prophecies): prenerf color matches the proposed (in the original research thread) prenerf color found in an old screenshot. Stats, order and icons are all identical.

(Pretty sure we're down to just 3 remaining prophecies prenerfs!)

Ironclaw (axe, factions): This one was a big surprise. I had originally listed it as "this done not have a prenerf until proven otherwise." Only the little stylized red lines on the blade change color. The prenerf Ironclaw matches the colors on any basic gothic axe, but the postnerf Ironclaw has slightly darker lines. I thiiink this is the first instance of an undyeable martial having this sort of change? It seems to match The Yakslapper's sort of one-off weirdness. (The base skin for The Yakslapper, "Sacred Staff", I think matches that of the prenerf version, and the postnerf seems to have the differing color.)
- Will try to get a better picture at some point, or just replicate with a regular gothic. The prenerf I confirmed was customized (sad react). The icons for the two are identical as far as I can tell.
- I'm still pretty confident that most, if not all, remaining items listed as "not having a prenerf" won't actually have a prenerf. What I can prob do is run through them again and check postnerf versions vs. base skins. If others *don't* match (like Ironclaw/Gothic Axe), then there may be a chance.

I still need to get around to some general thread cleanup and uploading some kind of image for the other confirmed TBAs from earlier. Hopefully that will help with finding some uncustomized versions.

M u c h T h a n k & E n j o y

Unholy · November 16, 2021 at 11:27 PM

No brand new confirmations with this update, but I've added images for the following 9 greens previously marked TBA.

Kaolin Protection Staff (2nd version) (monk staff, factions)- added image of color and mod changes now that I have one.
Rago's Flame Wand (ele wand, prophecies) - very noticeable color difference. icon/stats are identical
Kanaxai's Mallet (hammer, factions) - slight color difference in weapon and icon (most noticeable in the "silver" top of the hammer in the icon vs the darker "black" top in the icon of the postnerf. stats are the same.
Swiftscale's Shortbow (factions) - very slight color difference in the green wraps. difference more noticeable in the prenerf icon. stats identical
Nundak's Recurve Bow (factions) - slight difference in the red handle of the bow. stats/icon identical
Ryver's Shortbow (factions) - very slight color difference in the entire bow, more noticeable in the prenerf icon (lighter/whiter in color).
The Purifier (mez focus, factions) - color change in the weapon itself. stats/icons identical
Everthorn's Chakrams (factions) - unfortunately no image of the weapon for now, but very noticeable difference in the icons.
Vengeance Seeker (rit wand, factions) - color change in weapon/icon. prenerf is a brighter blue in both. stats identical.

Items 2-9 are owned by and/or customized to their respective owners. Thanks to them for either providing screenshots (swiftscale/nundak) or loaning them to me temporarily (rago's flame wand). The rest are the best I can do with quick screenshots I've taken in the past, but hopefully that will help some extras of them turn up.

Keep a lookout. Thanks

Unholy · December 18, 2021 at 9:55 PM

Happy to confirm that a prenerf "Faith" does exist. We thought so, but until now hadn't seen proof in-game. For whatever reason, the update that corrected the Imperial Dragon Spear and Phoenix's Retribution didn't correct these. Interesting to note that this is the only known prenerf added to the game after NF.

Polished the thread a bit more.

Added some suspected prenerf images of a few unconfirmed greens.
Also transferred over the list for known retroactively changed greens from the original discussion thread
Transferred Oldschool Cool's explanation and examples for staff mod order changes to this thread. I combined that with my explanation, and added a few additional examples in the spoiler above the "no prenerf" list.

If anyone has an image for any of the retroactive greens before they were changed, or knows of other examples, please share! Will add a few extra notes for some of these soon (like patch note dates, etc).

See below for Faith proof. The stat comparison has been added to the main list. No color change on this one, just an addition of the missing mod.

Thanks!

Oldschool Cool · December 18, 2021 at 10:37 PM

Great job all around, the thread is now really E.X.H.A.U.S.T.I.VE.

I think it's finally time that I change the original thread to redirect here and ask a mod to lock it down. (But not fully delete it in case people want to see the discussion and research).

I'm also really sad to see the german wiki (https://www.guildwiki.de/wiki/) seems to be definitively down, even if I don't speak the language it was a great source of historical informations. Which remind us that in life or on the internet nothing last forever.

Oldschool Cool · December 18, 2021 at 10:48 PM

A few more info that are still missing from the original thread :

* The Old-icons : We were able to find some old picture that show green items using a totally different icon than the current one. Those icon were similar to the gold items using the same skin, our theory is they were temporary icon that got updated and are no longer in game.

Oldschool Cool · December 18, 2021 at 11:19 PM

Also here are some more old picture showing the original color of the items in the potential category. All those picture are from some french fan-sites and were published in 2005/2006. I will publish them here in case the original site goes down.

Ivor Staff

Display Spoiler

The Kindlerock

Display Spoiler

For the faction greens you can check this other website : http://gwguide.free.fr/armes_vertes_factions.php . Around 95% of the picture are prenerf (it's easy to spot on the staves that still have the 20% local HSR), but a few here and there are post nerf.
I don't have a full collection of green item to compare it with, but i'm sure you could extract a few of them to illustrate the Potential Prenerf category.

Oldschool Cool · December 19, 2021 at 11:52 AM

Quote from Unholy

There is an old screenshot of the Bludgeoner hammer with a different mod order than the current one. However, this screenshot features the outdated 10/10 Sundering mod. Just before Factions, item drop tables were improved to offer higher quality mods. We also have an image from this time period of Gordac's Needle (which had a +3 energy mod and a different mod order) AND a proven Gordac's Needle pre-nerf currently. The pre-nerf has a +5 energy mod, and the same mod order as the current Needle. From this we can conclude that this particular update was retroactive in nature -- affecting all previously-created greens.

I feel that the geens that were changed during 15 June 2006 update deserve a bit more of attention :

26th April 2006 update :

"Upgraded Sundering weapon components to provide a maximum Armor Penetration of +20% (Chance: 20%)."

15th June 2006 update

"Updates over the past several months have improved a number of weapons and armors; these updates applied only to newly generated items, not to items already in player inventories. This update applies past improvements to the following inventory items: Victo's Battle Axe, Drago's Flatbow, Stoneherder's Flatbow, Tarnok's Recurve Bow, the Bludgeoner, Flint's Wand, Korvald's Cane, Ivor's Smiting Rod, Brimstone Wand, Gordac's Needle, Bortak's Bone Claw".

Looking at some old pictures (taken in 2005/early 2006) we can see that Victo's Battle Axe, Drago's Flatbow, Stoneherder's Flatbow and Tarnok's Recurve Bow got their penetration mod updated but nothing else was changed. Those can safely be included in the "Greens with documented retroactive changes" category because it's extremely unlikely that any of them had been forgotten.

The other green listed show some different pattern :

Bludgeoner

In the Original Bludgeoner the penetration was the very last mod, while in the current one the penetration is written just below the 15 wE.

Gordac's Needle

The new one is using a different mod order.

Bortak's Bone Claw