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Gold Farming

We all want more money. Well – not necessarily more MONEY but the shinies that money can purchase. Whether it is that shiny new cell phone or shiny new outfit or even something as bland as a legendary, we all want to make money and MMO games like Guild Wars 2 are no different.

This pursuit of money is one almost everyone has and almost everyone wants to make money in as quick and easy a way as possible. Plethora of get-rick-quick schemes exist to sell you the dream that even you, with no skills and almost no work, can get lots of money in a short amount of time.

Most of us know that these schemes do not work but in the realm of MMO’s in general and Guild Wars 2 in particular, these get-rich-quick schemes exist as well. While the MMO schemes do not charge a fee to utilize them, they all have varying degrees of success. In this post we will go through the more common gold farming schemes and rate their efficacy. If you have questions or comments, feel free to post them in the comment sections.

FLIPPING

The most obvious method of gold farming would be FLIPPING. What flipping entails is buying an item from the trading post at a “low” and turning it around and selling it “High”. Let’s take the legendary sword Bolt as an example. You buy it low at 2,000 gold and then turn around and put it up for 2,400 gold. Once you take away the 5% listing fee and 10% transaction fee – totaling 300 gold – you make a profit of 100 gold.

This is probably one is the easiest and laziest way to make money. It involves very little effort and almost no playing time. The problem with flipping is that it takes a lot of money and there is no guarantee of success. To flip Bolt in our example, it would require 2,300 gold and you only get that back when Bolt sells – along with the 100 gold profit. There is lots of uncertainty with selling items– it could sell in one day, one week, one year or maybe never. If you withdraw Bolt, you lose that 5% listing fee – 100 gold.

CRAFTING

Similar to flipping is CRAFTING. This is where one crafts an item with the intent to sell it on the trading post. As with flipping, that 15% transaction fee makes crafting for profit difficult.

That said, there are opportunities. Some have found certain under-crafted items which sell for a nice profit. Others use the one-a-day crafting limit of some items as an opportunity to generate some gold. As with flipping, there are risks with crafting for a profit, but they can be found if one does their homework.

GATHERING – Otherwise known as FARMING or MATERIAL FARMING

This method of gold farming has always been around in one form or another. This requires someone going out and finding harder-to-find materials, gathering said materials and then selling the results. The obvious results would be to farm locations where rich nodes exist – be they the metal nodes or one of the elder tree farms. Some will do gathering runs in tier 2, 3 or 4 areas gathering those lesser gathered materials for increased profits.

One of the more obvious gathering techniques is to farm flax – typically under the Jaka Itzel Waypoint. Flax seeds have some value and you average twelve (12) per day.

ArenaNet has changed the economics of gathering with the introduction of glyphs. These glyphs offer a bonus which is applied when gathering – which we discussed when they were introduced. If one does wish to gather for profit, one should should consider grabbing one.

There are a few which have a 1/3rd chance to get something which drastically increases the profitability of gathering runs. With a flax farm, you should average over two (2) successes per farm. This could yield 2 leather, 2 watchwork sprockets, or additional flax seeds. A rich mithril node averages at least three (3) successes. An elder tree farm averages five (5) successes.

One of the main downsides of gathering runs was the time required. It is slow running from node to node. But mounts have drastically sped this aspect up significantly with the raptors and roller beetles.

As a result, gathering runs are more profitable than before. It’s not mentally demanding but results vary.

SILVERWASTE CHEST RUNS

This was a very popular way to gold farm. Guilds were created solely for purposes of generating such instances and some runs would last over 24 hours. Obviously this was quite popular with some players. Apparently it got too popular as ArenaNet nerfed such runs. Running around and doing nothing but opening chests didn’t qualify as game playing to the powers that be and Silverwaste (SW) chest runs now are few, far between and short in duration.

The reason is because a shovel is needed to open a locked buried chest and those shovels no longer drop as freely as they did before. Shovels are also used in mining upgrade for guilds which further increases the demand on shovels so using these digging tools for chest runs has diminished.

RIBA RUNS

RIBA runs are the players’ response the ArenaNet’s nerfing of SW chest runs. A RIBA run consists of running around SW tagging events around the Pact Outposts – Red, Indigo, Blue and Amber. By tagging events, we mean do just enough to get credit for an event and move along to the next one. On a map which has four mini-squads roaming the map, the event count piles up and so does the shovel count. It’s not enough to generate enough shovels for a full SW chest run but those chests which are found on the RIBA path are unearthed and opened by all; generating the income.

We keep hearing that a RIBA run can generate ten (10) gold an hour. Our experience is that it is closer to two (2). Why the difference? We include opening chests, cleanup and inventory control and selling items on the trading post as part of the time costs. We also think the ten (10) gold standard is a bit exaggerated. There is a tendency for players to hoard those shovels for later guild use. There is also a need for map coordination as one (1) player can ruin the RIBA run by clearing events nerfing rewards.

META EVENTS – META RUNS

A META run is where the map collectively joins to do whatever grand massive event is there with a loot run afterwards. The Octovine in Auric Basic is the most obvious example. Newer maps have their own with varying degrees of difficulty and rewards. It appears that this method meets with ArenaNet’s approval for obtaining gold. A map coordinates and kills a boss and then gets to share the spoils.

The problem with doing metas for profit is that they are time consuming and the rewards are not bountiful. ArenaNet may approve of this method but gold seekers do not.

SUNKEN CHESTS

These chests are opened with Rusted Ornate Keys which are rare creature drops and can also be obtained by killing ten (10) kraits. We had a member open eighty (80) of these chests and log the results:

50 gold by 8 runs yields over 6 gold per run. Doesn’t sound all that bad, especially if you park a low-level character in a krait zone for the daily krait killer.

Because of the way these Sunken Chests work, you need to open all ten (10) first before the chest will be available to open again. So this member parked ten (10) characters and proceeded to open a chest, load another character and so on until eight (8) complete runs were done.

The report was that not all professions are good for underwater combat. It is extremely helpful to bring a friend if you are going to do this. It’s also extremely time consuming. Loading screens can bog down drastically turning this little quest into an annoying chore – and this is using ten (10) characters. It would be even longer if you need to run to each to each chest location.

While it does appear that ArenaNet is gearing up for a real underwater zone, the process of getting these ascended breathers and swimming boosts seems tedious.

TIER FOUR (4) FRACTALS

One of the more unsexy but effective methods of gaining gold is doing tier 4 fractals – levels 76-100. You might wonder why. You get around 100 +1 agony infusions which sounds like a lot but will net you around one (1) gold. There is a chance of ascended gear dropping but for the most part, you will not need it and you can not sell those anyway. In addition, T4 fractals are difficult and require a competent party. Frustration levels approach PvP levels.

The answer is all the junk you collect. You sell all this junk to merchants and can get between right (8) and thirteen (13) gold. This is in addition to any materials you receive as well as rare and exotic drops. It’s definitely something you should add to your gold farming repertoire.

Don’t venture into fractals? Don’t worry. You can learn about the mechanics of each fractal by doing tier 1. This agony is just a bit of a gold sink – to max out your agony resistance will set you back by about 140 gold and only needed in the higher tiers. There is no agony in tier 1 and only minimal for tier 2.

Comments? Additional methods not discussed here? Please let us know directly or in the comments below.

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