Guild Wars 2

Ive been doing a bit of research lately. I had known about Corrupted Lodestone farming for quite some time. So I thought Id see how I go farming lodestones for profit. I was looking at it from a WvW player perspective, how I could farm gold to fund my WvW experience. But it seems Corrupted Lodestones are the only ones that regularly drop. I went to Malchors, Orr and Mt Maelstrom and put in alot of hours. My return was zilch. So it turns out that for them to drop certain events have to be at a certain stage and must include X and the sun and the moon need to align with Jupiter and then the mobs that can drop them will spawn.

Meanwhile back at Corrupted lodestone farming Im averaging one around every 40 minutes over long periods of time with a maxed out MF kit. Along with the other T5 and T6 mats, I think this is a pretty decent farm. Not the best for sure, but a good one to do for an hour before you jump in WvW for the rest of the night. But monotony. Is there another place like this that drops these kind of valuable mats? Seems outside corrupted, the other lodestones aren’t a farmable thing unless you wanna do dungeons, which I don’t. Ive done most paths of most dungeons, but they don’t really appeal to me.

Any type of lodestone farming is not worth the time investment.
My suggestion is:
1. Trade Karma farmed in WvW for Lost Orrian Jewelry Boxes. They drop lodestones.
2. Farm CoF or Pen/ Shelt in Orr and use the money to buy lodestones on the TP.
Any other type of attempt is a waste of time and not worth the effort.
The problem with farming any type of lodestone in the open world is that DR kicks in before a single drop, and by then you’ll only be getting junk.

I farm charged lodestones, but its often thankless work.

I consider a normal run 45-60 minutes (after I log in and check the Temple of Dwayna has been flipped – I only occassionally am involved in the flipping myself). In a normal “run”, in MF armor, some MF runes, and with Omnom Bars (which actually seem to work better than the armor or runes…) I expect about a 1 in 3 chance of seeing a lodestone drop within the hour. About 1/4 of my runs that have a lodestone drop see a second drop. Exactly once I’ve gotten 3 lodestones in a single farming session.

I find my odds are improved in a group – enough so I’m suspicious that magic find is shared and cumulative across party members. The one time I got three lodestones was also noteworth in that I was in a group most of the run AND we cycled back and forth almost exclusively between the veteran air elementals, killing a few stray air elementals and almost completely ignoring the sparks.

In otherwords you CAN force them out of the dark depths of the RNG, but it takes serious persistence.

Nike.2631:

I farm charged lodestones, but its often thankless work.

I consider a normal run 45-60 minutes (after I log in and check the Temple of Dwayna has been flipped – I only occassionally am involved in the flipping myself). In a normal “run”, in MF armor, some MF runes, and with Omnom Bars (which actually seem to work better than the armor or runes…) I expect about a 1 in 3 chance of seeing a lodestone drop within the hour. About 1/4 of my runs that have a lodestone drop see a second drop. Exactly once I’ve gotten 3 lodestones in a single farming session.

I find my odds are improved in a group – enough so I’m suspicious that magic find is shared and cumulative across party members. The one time I got three lodestones was also noteworth in that I was in a group most of the run AND we cycled back and forth almost exclusively between the veteran air elementals, killing a few stray air elementals and almost completely ignoring the sparks.

In otherwords you CAN force them out of the dark depths of the RNG, but it takes serious persistence.

There’s a lot of superstition about groups providing better drop rates, but I believe it’s a result of two things: more efficient mob clearing, and a sort of sampling bias. When farming mobs in a group, you’re naturally going to kill more of them, even when compared with farming around other people but not grouped with them. Obviously you’re going to get more drops by killing 150 mobs than you would when killing 100 mobs. Groups are always going to try ensure everyone tags the mob before it’s killed, so even efficient non-formalized groups will produce fewer loot events than a formalized group will (on average).

The other issue likely to come up is a sample bias. When I’m farming something fairly rare alone, I can only see my own drop rate. I don’t see what the other people with me end up getting. When farming with a group, usually people will link if they get a good drop. When they link a good drop, the brain naturally tries to count that drop as loot for the group, and tracks how well the group as a whole is doing. But when no one links anything, people tend to consider only their own personal drop rate. In that way, party members have their drop rates counted only when they have a successful drop. When there’s no drops at all, their lack of receipt isn’t counted, it’s simply dropped from the mental data set. This causes the appearance of drop rates to be higher for groups than for individuals, but doesn’t actually demonstrate that.

However, it’s worth pointing out that this is a game, and is presumably played for fun and enjoyment. While that sampling bias doesn’t actually improve the drop rates for players, it can make players feel like they’re doing better, which can make them enjoy the activity more even though there’s no real rational reason for them to feel that way. Being aware of this sort of sampling bias doesn’t actually change how it’s tracked and interpreted, so it’s a good way to feel better and more accomplished about your farming.

Syeria.4812:

There’s a lot of superstition about groups providing better drop rates, but I believe it’s a result of two things: more efficient mob clearing, and a sort of sampling bias. When farming mobs in a group, you’re naturally going to kill more of them, even when compared with farming around other people but not grouped with them. Obviously you’re going to get more drops by killing 150 mobs than you would when killing 100 mobs. Groups are always going to try ensure everyone tags the mob before it’s killed, so even efficient non-formalized groups will produce fewer loot events than a formalized group will (on average).

This. I hope everyone reads and understands this. This is the reason why we assume we get more drops, because as a group we tag more kills, thus more drops.

The most efficient lode/core farming is Molten from CoF, reason why its dirt cheap. Second would be Onyx from TA. Many farm the first boss, the wurms for the chest then reenter for chest again. Third would be Dredge fractals or 76+ Dredge in Frostgorge for their Heavy Miner’s Bag.

Other than that, none of the actual lodestones have reasonable droprates, lol. Its all RNG which kinda sucks. I’ve had a friend farm sparks and got 4 in 15 mins while another with higher MF got 0 in 2 hours. It’s really annoying.

Syeria.4812:

Nike.2631:

I farm charged lodestones, but its often thankless work.

I consider a normal run 45-60 minutes (after I log in and check the Temple of Dwayna has been flipped – I only occassionally am involved in the flipping myself). In a normal “run”, in MF armor, some MF runes, and with Omnom Bars (which actually seem to work better than the armor or runes…) I expect about a 1 in 3 chance of seeing a lodestone drop within the hour. About 1/4 of my runs that have a lodestone drop see a second drop. Exactly once I’ve gotten 3 lodestones in a single farming session.

I find my odds are improved in a group – enough so I’m suspicious that magic find is shared and cumulative across party members. The one time I got three lodestones was also noteworth in that I was in a group most of the run AND we cycled back and forth almost exclusively between the veteran air elementals, killing a few stray air elementals and almost completely ignoring the sparks.

In otherwords you CAN force them out of the dark depths of the RNG, but it takes serious persistence.

There’s a lot of superstition about groups providing better drop rates, but I believe it’s a result of two things: more efficient mob clearing, and a sort of sampling bias. When farming mobs in a group, you’re naturally going to kill more of them, even when compared with farming around other people but not grouped with them. Obviously you’re going to get more drops by killing 150 mobs than you would when killing 100 mobs. Groups are always going to try ensure everyone tags the mob before it’s killed, so even efficient non-formalized groups will produce fewer loot events than a formalized group will (on average).

The other issue likely to come up is a sample bias. When I’m farming something fairly rare alone, I can only see my own drop rate. I don’t see what the other people with me end up getting. When farming with a group, usually people will link if they get a good drop. When they link a good drop, the brain naturally tries to count that drop as loot for the group, and tracks how well the group as a whole is doing. But when no one links anything, people tend to consider only their own personal drop rate. In that way, party members have their drop rates counted only when they have a successful drop. When there’s no drops at all, their lack of receipt isn’t counted, it’s simply dropped from the mental data set. This causes the appearance of drop rates to be higher for groups than for individuals, but doesn’t actually demonstrate that.

However, it’s worth pointing out that this is a game, and is presumably played for fun and enjoyment. While that sampling bias doesn’t actually improve the drop rates for players, it can make players feel like they’re doing better, which can make them enjoy the activity more even though there’s no real rational reason for them to feel that way. Being aware of this sort of sampling bias doesn’t actually change how it’s tracked and interpreted, so it’s a good way to feel better and more accomplished about your farming.

Anyone that has farm cursed shore events alone and in groups can attest that drop rates are noticeably better in groups. I’m not referring to quality of drop, but quantity. It really is a night and day difference in most cases.

Himei.5379:

This.

No, not “This.” but thank you for assumining I’m a mouth-breather that can’t count .

This is the reason why we assume we get more drops, because as a group we tag more kills, thus more drops.

I’m aware of the increased number of kills per minute when farming sparks/air elementals/verteran air elementals solo vs. in a group. Really. I am. Conciously even.

As a game designer, it occurs to me that party-wide shared magic find would A ) negate 99% of the arguments and complaints people raise about wearing magic-find gear while running dungeons meaning said person contribute less while reaping greater rewards and B ) explain why it’s not summed up for us on the Hero Panel character sheet.

In any event, yes, the more reliably generated lodestones are predictably easier to buy at the AH. I had a group that got into farming CoE steadily for a while – during that time I racked up quite a few charged cores, but compared to the speed ball that is blitzing CoF, yeah, its still slow going.