Vol's Epic Gold Making Guide

Vol's Epic Gold Making Guide

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Posted by: Vol.7601

Vol.7601

TLDR: There is no TLDR. Read it. It’s a long, extensive and useful guide

CONTENTS

I – Preface
II – Mandatory Components

  • A.) Guardian
  • B.) Multi-server API (great for metaevents)
  • C.) Multi-server Overlay (great for advanced notice on farming spots – can be used in lieu of B )
  • D.) SSD
  • E.) Metaevent tracker

III – How to make Gold

  • A.) Orr Event Chains
  • B.) Metaevent/Temples

IV – Play Smart, Get Gold
V – Advanced Guardian Tips


IMPORTANT NOTE – Apr.10 edit***

Metaevent farming will be nerfed on April 15. The bulk of the gold made in this guide will be from Orr events. This guide was constructed before the announcement of megaservers and there have been no revisions.

(edited by Vol.7601)

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Vol.7601

I – PREFACE
You must be wondering why I’m sharing this guide. After all, more people knowing about this would mean more players doing it, and dropping the material price. But my intent (hopefully I don’t regret this) is to get all players from all servers farming these events. This will result in more servers doing these events and more opportunities to farm. THIS TYPE OF FARM WILL NEVER WORK IF EVERYONE GUESTS TO THE TOP SERVERS, AS MORE PEOPLE DOING THESE MEANS LESS DROPS FOR EVERYONE. In fact, the ideal size for these events is no more than 20 players. So after reading this guide, I hope you will share this with your friends and your guilds and run events on your server.

This guide will show you how to make, on average, 8-12 gold per hour strictly through PvE play. There is no TP flipping or champ training, nor does this guide involve any sort of exploits.

Normally when people think of gold making guides, they think of a set of events that you can farm. In order to make a sufficient amount of gold, I will explain the events/trains that will give you the most gold. But equally important is how to play smart so that you will maximize and be efficient in your tagging and gold intake.

The 12/g hour figure is through extensive testing ever since December when I came up with this method. This amount is based on adhering to the guide strictly. Of course though, the value fluctuates due to the timing of events. So if you only play for one hour, it’s possible that your gold for that session is 0 since the events may not be up. The ideal session for farming is a minimum of 2 hours since these events respawn every 1h 45m.

The most important and key feature of this guide is guesting. if you are unwilling to guest, then you will not meet these gold rates.

Also, this guide is designed with a guardian in mind. I do not know all the tricks and skills of other classes, so it is up for you to infer which skills are best to farm these efficiently.

II – MANDATORY TOOLS/COMPONENTS
The following are mandatory in order for you to farm sufficiently/efficiently

A.) A lvl 80 staff guardian
The necro and engi are good for farming, but nothing is better for farming mobility than a guardian. A guardian is a must since these events are farmed so extensively that mob life span is very short. No class has the ability to frequently tag 15 mobs in a second.

B.) Multi-server Event API - This is one very important and extremely useful tool that you should use. If you are familiar with gw2stuff.com event timers, you notice that the layout shows one server at a time.

User Healix.5819 was kind enough to construct an API page several months ago which adds multiple servers into one window (the other alternative being separate tabs).
His file is located here:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzK8l0-EXm-ZclJ2dFBuMEVyRjQ/edit?usp=sharing

Download it and open the file “multi.htm” in Internet Explorer (and enable Active X controls). Then you can add servers by clicking the “+”

[Note I’m not responsible for the contents of that link since I have no control of it]

Once you have set that up, guest to two servers (please do not guest to TC/JQ/BG, as they are already too full and is the main reason why I released this guide). Good PvE servers such as Yaks Bend, Fort Aspenwood and Maguuma are better.

C.) Multi-server Event API Overlay
You can download this at http://geekleet.net/gw2/.

Be advised that this is a program, not a website like B.). As such, there is greater risk with this, but in my +2 months using this I have not had a problem. You can view the reddit release thread here:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1wnfat/tool_gw2toolz_templebossevents_overlay_over/

[Note I’m not responsible for any damages that may occur by utilizing this software]

D.) A Solid State Drive
This significantly improves your load times. This is essential for the guide due to the extensive use of guesting. It is also a good investment for your computer overall.

E.) Metaevent Tracker
This is the tracker that I use for keeping track of all the events my characters have done. It’s an amalgamation of improvements from several users. You can download it here:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-xkYcOHSr9od3Jhelk4SkNtYU0/edit

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III – MAKING GOLD

All of the gold I make is directly from two material types – T6 mats and globs of ectoplasm.

On a good week, I generate over 80 of each T6 mat along with two full stacks of Globs of Ectoplasm. This doesn’t even include all the other T5 mats that amount to 30-50g alone every week. The T6 mats largely come from farming Orr while the globs of ectoplasm come from metaevents. I will discuss both points below.

A.) FARMING ORR EVENTS
There are four specific events that you should be looking for. These events are high priority and you should stop any metaevent that you are doing and do these instead. Almost always I will stop a metaevent halfway through to get started on these events. I would never sacrifice 2 minutes of Grenth, for example, to wait for 2 minutes for a chest at Maw.

The events are as follows:
1.) Help Crusader Angaria signal reinforcements for the assault on Arah (Angaria farm)
2.) Defend the beacon until Pact reinforcements can arrive (2nd beacon)
3.) Cover Keeper Jonez Deadrun as he performs the cleansing ritual (Grenth)
4.) Help the Pact reach the Altar of Betrayal before their morale is depleted (Balthazar)

I have listed these events in order of the overall best farming experience. I will explain below these events in depth on how to properly farm them efficiently and complete them. Remember to farm these events on all three servers, not just one
_________________________

  • 1.) Help Crusader Angaria signal reinforcements for the assault on Arah

What’s so great about this event?
How about 7 minutes of pure, constant spawns at your feet (3 seconds in between waves), with 15 mobs each wave? If you don’t have a salvage kit or plenty of bag space, you are in bad luck here!

This event, located southeast of Shank Anchorage in Cursed Shore, is only accessible once capturing Anchorage (following the Warmaster Chan escort).

There really isn’t much that has to be said about this in terms of strategy since it is so simple. Guardians are the best for this event since mobs are spread out around you in a circle, which makes it difficult for other classes to tag all of them.

On certain servers, there are too many players farming which results in mobs dying instantly. The ideal # of players for this event to tag all mobs is roughly 10-15.
In addition, the two events that follow after Angaria (securing both promenades) are also good for loot.

Advantages: Long event timer, short respawn of waves
Disadvantages: Angaria might light both beacons too soon, causing the event to succeed prematurely (this always happens after a patch) You’d like her to fail (but you aren’t actually doing anything to encourage it failing). Arah chain also bugs out on plenty of servers.

  • 2.) Melandru 2nd Beacon farm

This is a 5 minute defense phase that has five separate spawn points (the water wave bugs sometimes and only spawns one mob)

This farm is great because you have constant spawns of mobs, and it can be a great farm with just 5 people. It also helps that the invulnerable phases allow you to get in time to tag the mob. Of course though, this results in people nuking them at their vulnerable spot (I do, admittedly). Stability, speed and mobility are very important here so that you can get your maximum tags.

Since large zergs focus down the waves as they exit the invulnerability phase, you need a skill which will do a lot of DPS quickly. For example, when it comes to the guardian, Symbol of Swiftness or Wave of Wrath do not have a fast enough damage tick. You will lose out on mobs that die between your dps tick. Therefore, you need a skill that has a high tick per second. The GS 2 is perfect for this, especially when you pop GS 4 beforehand for additional ticks.

Advantages: Can be sufficiently farmed with few people, plenty of loot, high mob density, steady stream of mobs
Disadvantages: Will need stability in larger zergs, lots of kill camping

(edited by Vol.7601)

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  • 3.) Temple of Grenth

Grenth is a very good place to farm, but very competitive. There is no event scaling for Grenth, so whether you have 5 people or 50, the same number of mobs spawn. The only difference is the adjusted level.

Grenth has 8 unique spawn spots, which I have marked below.
http://i.imgur.com/RFoygQ1.png

There is also a wave that spawns behind Jones, but it usually dies quickly. Since waves die in a few seconds, and being in the back puts you far away from the other spawns, you will lose out on plenty of loot from the other spawn points.

With 10-15 players, Grenth is an extremely optimal farm and you can easily tag all waves. However, in T1 servers, there can be well over 40 players farming the temple, which results in mobs dying quickly and spawn camping.

The one thing that separates Grenth from all the other events is that mob density is very high. Mobs are packed closely together, which IMO is more bad than good. It is bad if you fail to adapt to the 5-target limit. If you want to get the most out of every wave, make sure you encircle the mob while tagging it. For example, many staff guardians would simply spam 1 as the mobs come toward them. They may think they are tagging everything but they are only tagging the 5 in the front. What I do is drop a symbol infront of them (and if time permits, use Orb 2), and then spam Wave of Wrath as I circle the wave. This ensures that I hit all sides of the wave and I tag all the mobs. It’s also good to use GS 2 which guarantees a hit on all mobs in a wave.

In each wave, there will be 1-2 Veterans. The Veterans Wraiths and Guards themselves are not threats. However, the Veteran Acolytes, which spawn from the sides, are a threat to not only the survivability of a small group at Grenth, but your loot potential. They spawn several spawnlings which do not provide exp or loot while at the same time occupying a spot on your 5-target limit. If you are in a small group, they must be killed as soon as possible to prevent being overwhelmed. In addition, some Veterans act as a condition for the next wave – if you do not kill them, the next wave will not spawn. So in order to increase the frequency of waves and your loot, kill veterans ASAP.

The other issue you have to deal with are the two champions – the wraith and the spider. Both are deadly and both are a huge threat to Jones if you do not kill them quickly enough. They drop wells (similar to Veteran Subjugators) which when placed on Jones, will fail the event. The Wraith is also good at stealing health while the spider steadily creates spawnlings. Both need to be dealt with very quickly.

Advantages: Lots of mobs, very dense.
Disadvantages: Lots of spawnlings, unrewarding if too many people, too far of a run, mob density requires player adaptability, cannot be sufficiently farmed with only 5 people

Tip: The mobs spawn in a certain pattern. If you know the pattern, you will be able to beat the zerg and tag mobs before they die. However, it is important to know that pre-firing mobs at Grenth can result in them dying before appearing, which rewards you only EXP

  • 4.) Temple of Balthazar – Southern Escort to Plaza & Altar of Betrayal.

The southern escort is the best invasion of the three to get max loot. It has the most frequent number of spawns and they are close enough to attack easily for any class (<600 range). The only issue with Southern Escort (And the whole Balthazar run) is that you need sufficient numbers to upscale the event. At it’s default setting, the mobs are lvl 75, which only drop Large Moldy Bags (max t5). As soon as you have enough people to upscale it to lvl 76, you will start getting great returns.

For Altar of Betrayal escort, farming is pretty straightforward, but the real challenge is making sure the event does not fail.. The main suspect are the Veteran Risen Subjugators, and even though this may hurt your tagging ability, it should be a priority to kill these ASAP. They place several wells on the ground that deals pulsing damage. If you are lucky, the subjugators do not activate these aoes or the NPCs may not even be in range. There are 4 subjugators in total that spawn (two in the 3rd wave). I have attached images that show their usual spawns.

(edited by Vol.7601)

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http://i.imgur.com/DxPQbPX.png
http://i.imgur.com/hKORBlL.png
http://i.imgur.com/v114Zfr.png

You will also have to deal with Risen Nobles in the 5th wave. A long time ago they used to be a big problem, but now you can easily handle them by acting as a buffer between the NPCs. The nobles will teleport to their first target and drop their wells. If they teleport on to an NPC, they will die. But if you are their first target, they will waste their wells on you, leaving NPCs unharmed.

You must also keep an eye on Risen Plague Carriers since they are suicide bombers. They are spawnlings of Veteran Acolyte and will start spawning at the foot of the altar. These can also kill the npcs. The big problem with these guys is that players do not pay attention and try to kill them, but because there is a 5-target limit on attacks and there are so many spawnlings, your attacks may never register on them. As a result, players should zerg the Veteran Risen Acolytes and make sure all spawnlings are killed quickly in the process (or better, yet, pre-fire with symbols)

I have attached an image of the spawn waves in order so that you can be prepared (acolytes spawn on 1 and 2)

http://i.imgur.com/M4mnUyE.png

Advantages: Moderate amount of mobs
Disadvantages: Must be properly scaled for loot, very easy to fail the altar escort, some spawns are spread out

B: METAEVENT FARMING

  • Metaevent priority

This point is obvious and nearly everyone already does them. Metaevent trains are a good way to get Dragonite and your daily rares. They are group-scale events which require you to complete several pre-events in order to activate the final boss or event wave.

I should start off by saying that there are some metaevents in game that should be ignored, saved for last, or done when no other options are available. There can be several reasons, such as frequency of spawn, lack of reward or opportunity cost. Below are metaevents that I absolutely will not do:

-Lyssa
-Mega Destroyer
-Shaman
-Eye of Zhaitan

Of course, if you know that these metaevents are nearly done and you can ‘leech’ off of them at the end, I suggest going for it. But going for these events from start to end is a complete waste of time.

  • Metaevent guesting

A lot of people do their metaevents on just one server, completing them on demand. Since a lot of metaevents overlap, you are prone to miss them until they respawn. Guesting resolves this by giving you two more opportunities to complete the event. Why wait a guaranteed 3 hours for Jormag when you can get the opportunity to do it sooner on other servers? This tip is great for players who only have 2 hours a day to play since it maximizes the number of events you can do and reduces wait times.
By using the multi server API I provided earlier, you can scan all three servers and prioritize the metaevents that need to be done. You can also use your personal judgement and see if you will be able to do multiple metaevents before they complete (ignoring overflow possibility)

  • Repeating Metaevents

There are a few metaevents that are worth repeating multiple times across characters simply for the large physical chest. This is a good way to kill time while waiting for the Orr events to pop up. It also helps that there is a <50% chance at receiving a rare from the chest.

The metaevents that I do across all four of my guards consist of Fire Elemental, Wurm, Maw and Golem. This is because they respawn frequently and are completed frequently

Utilizing metaevent guesting and repeating bosses is my main source of globs. I only play about 3-4 hours on weekdays, which nets me at least 50 globs of ectoplasm (including Orr farming)

(edited by Vol.7601)

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IV – PLAY SMART, MAKE GOLD

These tips and tricks listed below are just as important as knowing what events to farm. They will separate you from the rest of the dead-brain farmers that press one key, and can be the difference in making a ton of gold.

Mob Priority
When dealing with normal level mobs, do not waste your time hitting them multiple times if there are other waves available. One or two hits is more than enough to get credit. Spending too much time on normal mobs will make you miss other spawns that may be behind you.

I also see zergs go for that one single Champ Wraith while ignoring the one wave of 10 mobs behind them. Those 10 mobs give way more value than one single champ.

Remember that killings lots of weak mobs is better than killing one strong champ mob.

Mob Spawnlings – Ignore Them
Do not waste any time on these mobs types unless necessary (i.e. Balthazar). They do not provide you any loot or EXP and will occupy your 5-target limit.
Examples of mob spawnlings – spiderlings from champ spiders, Risen Thrall/Carrier

Party up!
-Partying is not only for loot credit for champs/vets, but for speed stacking and boon priority. When dealing with mobs that are spread out, speed is extremely helpful especially in zergs. A party full of guardians is good for stacking speed, stability and aegis.

Magic Find
-Magic find absolutely works based on my own anecdotal evidence and experience with farming. If you cannot afford the omnomberry bars, the Raspberry Peach Bar has 4% less MF and costs considerably cheaper. Magic find works best when you are killing multiple mobs so that you have many opportunities to roll for loot. Since this guide focuses on plenty of mobs, MF is a must. The only thing that will ruin MF is DR.
I do not suggest investing the gold it takes to maximize luck unless you are a hardcore farmer

Fighting DR
Despite having over 3500 hours farming, there are still plenty of mysteries involving DR, including how long it takes to get it and how to remove it. What I do know, however, is that DR is soulbound. If you are hardcore like me, create multiple guardians and rotate them among events. My general rule is that if I’m farming Orr with one guardian, I switch to the next one once I reach 90 Heavy Moldy Bags.

Use Open Waypoints
-Instead of running to metaevents, make sure you take a glance at the multi-meta event API to utilize waypoints. The events that are handy for this include Dwayna, Balthazar and Grenth. For example, if you know you are short on time and don’t think you can make the run for Grenth, see if the waypoint is open on the other server. Guest, use the WP then guest back. This saves you 1-2 minutes, which for Grenth is A LOT of gold (ignore this tip if you have a hard drive)

I also like to use this trick when fighting the Risen Priest of Grenth. It’s quicker to use guest waypoints than run back.

Prioritize Metaevents
When doing metaevents across servers, always keep in mind to prioritize certain metaevents based on respawn timers.

For example, consider this scenario:
Yaks Bend – Golem – 14 minutes remaining
Maguuma – Maw – 14 minutes remaining
Kaineng – Dredge Commissar just spawned

Both Golem and Maw are at points where they both may die at the same time. But it’ll be another 2-3 minutes before that happens. Dredge Commissar has just spawned. While I could do Dredge Commissar, it has a short respawn timer and frequently respawns, so I ignore him. It may also take so long that I miss both Golem/Maw. I will park one of my characters at Golem (I have enough time to do so) while I send the other to Maw. That way, once I finish one boss, I can quickly relog on the other to save time.

(edited by Vol.7601)

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V – ADVANCED GUARDIAN TIPS

The Guardian is the best class in the game and the class that will get you rich easily. Most people roll a guardian to just staff spam 1, but you can do better than that. Here are some tips to get the most out of your guardian in order to increase your gold-intake efficiency

1.) Weapons/skills/traits

Staff/GS are mandatory weapons, as are the utility skill Judge’s intervention and the elite Renewed Focus. Save Yourselves, Retreat and Stand Your Ground are used interchangeably for the last 2 slots, depending on what you are farming. Some players use Purging Flames as an additional AOE, but it is unreliable for loot credit since burn damage is very low.

Staff obviously is your main tagging weapon while GS is for high tick and high damage for Veterans and Champs (you do not want to use staff on them)
Judge’s Intervention is a way to transport to a mob quickly while also tagging them at the same time. This skill is absolutely essential when fighting alongside zergs. Save Yourselves is useful for getting out of knockbacks while Retreat is primarily for speed. Stand Your Ground is extremely helpful for Melandru 2nd beacon due to knockbacks which will prevent you from tagging mobs in time.

2.) Efficient Tagging

If there is a huge zerg and a large cluster of mobs, utilize Staff 1, 3 and Judge’s Intervention to tag the most mobs in the fewest time available. You can tag 15 mobs in one second utilizing this technique:

(Skip to 1:30)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIjthd9tqMY#t=92

http://i.imgur.com/eWirl23.png
If you were to approach this wave in a huge zerg with simple staff spamming, you will not get as many mobs. This method ensures you can tag the majority of the mobs before the zerg wipes them

3.) Guardians stand together

Stacking speed – Stacking symbol of swiftness, Save Yourselves and Retreat gives you 1 minute of speed. Grouping up with others, especially other Guardians increases this. In large zergs speed is essential and you should be partying up. Guards also help your loot credit.

4. Guardian Orr Farming Build

10 Valor – IV
30 Honor – II, III, IX
30 Virtue – I, IX, X

This build ensures you have the mobility, speed and stability to move around. It also allows you to have large symbols which increases your tagging ability. The only traits that can be swapped out for something else are Virtues I, Valor IV and Honor III with Honor VII.

END

This is the farming scheme I’ve used since December and has netted me thousands of gold. It’s probable Anet will nerf it sometime in the future, but as always, farmers like me will find a way to get the next best thing.

IMPORTANT REMINDER
I strongly discourage guesting to the T1 servers to do these events. Unlike champ farming, more numbers does not mean more loot or more efficiency. It’s the opposite.

(edited by Vol.7601)

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Vol.7601

If you have questions mail me in game

IGN: Really Bad Guardian
Vol.5241 (not Vol.7601)

(edited by Vol.7601)

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Posted by: Smooth Penguin.5294

Smooth Penguin.5294

Congrats Vol, you just unlocked the inflation door. Now John will have to mitigate the damages from the influx of Gold into the economy.

:3

In GW2, Trading Post plays you!

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Inflation won’t happen – disinflation will happen with T6 mats and globs

protip: sell all your t6 and globs

That being said, I dare John Smith nerf my spots. I have others ready

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Smooth Penguin.5294

Calling out John with a challenge? Welcome to Econ Wars 2!

In GW2, Trading Post plays you!

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Posted by: danielrjones.8759

danielrjones.8759

Very nice guide Vol. I had been doing the same 4 events you spoke of for a long time now. I sincerely hope people read your guide and those who love to farm take it to heart.
I found your numbers to be spot on. As with all things, some days are better than others. People who do these event and use your guide. I hope work mf hardcore. I found that made a considerable difference as well.

Very funny trick about the wp, been doing that as well. Found many times when I try to crowd several regular meta in between farming the main 4

I do have a question, what severs do you recommend? Not asking so everyone will flock to the same one, but say the top 5. I have been using NSP for one of mine but as you mentioned, ideal size is around 20. And well they have considerably more. One very nice thing about NSP, they are extremely consistent.

(edited by danielrjones.8759)

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I’ve been doing SoR/TC/JQ since December. But routinely they have 60 or so doing these events, which is why I’m posting this here. You cannot get any sort of loot other than off-peak times. I hope to find a new server to flock to because it just ain’t cutting it here.

I can’t imagine what its like on BG…

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Posted by: bOgz.7263

bOgz.7263

I doubt anet will do something about this. The farm is there, Vol just taught us how to do it efficiently.

My concern is on the guardian staff 1, please dont nerf it. And this might be the best time to hoard guardian related items.

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Posted by: Buttercup.5871

Buttercup.5871

I did this for months but it gets real boring. Protip: not only the staff guardian can pull this off. Strangely enough I got the same – if not better – results on my ranger, who has an amazing kitten -nal (kittenfilter!) of tagging options if you know your stuff.

(edited by Buttercup.5871)

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Posted by: Cassocaster.4576

Cassocaster.4576

Exceptional Vol, Orr has always been my favorite zone for farming and ironically use my guard for that. Thank you for not being greedy or secretive forever, you’ve always provided very sagely advice and I appreciate it.

I also appreciate that you show that it takes work, research and time to achieve the goal and that you aren’t posting a “fad diet” if you will. Doubtless that people will complain in some form that they can’t just press CTRL+G and click a node/NPC to get instant treasure.

One question though, does this mean you are retiring from the farming game?

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Posted by: Cassocaster.4576

Cassocaster.4576

I did this for months but it gets real boring. Protip: not only the staff guardian can pull this off. Strangely enough I got the same – if not better – results on my ranger, who has an amazing kitten -nal (kittenfilter!) of tagging options if you know your stuff.

Yeah, volley with a long bow and good timing can work miracles both in event and WvW farming.

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Posted by: Buttercup.5871

Buttercup.5871

I did this for months but it gets real boring. Protip: not only the staff guardian can pull this off. Strangely enough I got the same – if not better – results on my ranger, who has an amazing kitten -nal (kittenfilter!) of tagging options if you know your stuff.

Yeah, volley with a long bow and good timing can work miracles both in event and WvW farming.

Yes, and a greatsword. And traps. And drakes. And a warhorn while running. And traveler runes. And the piercing arrow trait (switch out for spotter in dungeons). And fire sigils. Stuff like that.

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Posted by: Phoebe Ascension.8437

Phoebe Ascension.8437

Nobody on EU uses this, not even T1, or pve servers like Desolation. Shame, cause i know they actually care about money grinding.

Legendary weapons can be hidden now!
No excuse anymore for not giving ‘hide mounts’-option
No thanks to unidentified weapons.

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Posted by: Cassocaster.4576

Cassocaster.4576

Gonna add one other profitable event series in Cursed:

1) Defend Pact Tactician Megill from the Risen (80)
2) Burn the scattered Pact corpses to honor the fallen (80)
3) Escort Tactician Megill to safe ground (80)

Average about 20 heavy moldy bags and plenty of other drops and spawns often.

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Posted by: Awbee.8405

Awbee.8405

I sure hope this won’t make arena.net consider nerfing Guardian …

Rather give all other classes reliable AoE as well. Some have none. Like Mesmer.

Necro, Engi and Thief are pretty good for AoE tagging as well though. I levelled my thief from 40 to 80 in Queen’s Gauntlet with nothing but Shortbow, and made some nice gold in the process. Warrior cleaves, at least. Ele has got some nice fields, but not much in the way of reliable autoattack AoE. Mesmer has nothing, it’s completely useless for tagging events.

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Vol.7601

Exceptional Vol, Orr has always been my favorite zone for farming and ironically use my guard for that. Thank you for not being greedy or secretive forever, you’ve always provided very sagely advice and I appreciate it.

I also appreciate that you show that it takes work, research and time to achieve the goal and that you aren’t posting a “fad diet” if you will. Doubtless that people will complain in some form that they can’t just press CTRL+G and click a node/NPC to get instant treasure.

One question though, does this mean you are retiring from the farming game?

of course not.

Actually I’m still greedy :P There is no way I’d post this unless it would work well for me, which I hope involves getting everyone to do these on all servers. But that benefits everyone else as well, so it’s a win win for all

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Vol.7601

I sure hope this won’t make arena.net consider nerfing Guardian …

Rather give all other classes reliable AoE as well. Some have none. Like Mesmer.

Necro, Engi and Thief are pretty good for AoE tagging as well though. I levelled my thief from 40 to 80 in Queen’s Gauntlet with nothing but Shortbow, and made some nice gold in the process. Warrior cleaves, at least. Ele has got some nice fields, but not much in the way of reliable autoattack AoE. Mesmer has nothing, it’s completely useless for tagging events.

In my unbiased opinion, I think Anet definitely should nerf Staff Guardian. It’s waaaay too OP and specialized and it gives one class a huge advantage over others.

In my biased opinion, Anet will never do such a thing because of the community uproar

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Posted by: Pie Flavor.1647

Pie Flavor.1647

oh god this is so kittening boring

I would gladly let go of the opportunity to make 50g/hour just to do something more fun

And I am become kitten, the destroyer of kittens

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Posted by: ZudetGambeous.9573

ZudetGambeous.9573

Interesting… This is pretty much what I do except with a condition necro and only on one server. I would say I pull in about 5-6g/hr that way. I never considered the multi server approach, it would make things much more efficient.

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Posted by: sorudo.9054

sorudo.9054

yay, a guide about how you should play A.K.A. take a guardian or scram…..

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Posted by: somsom.5201

somsom.5201

yay, a guide about how you should play A.K.A. take a guardian or scram…..

Necro and Engineer work quite well too, as I found during the Orr Elemental farm awhile back(the event failure one).

Guardian still takes the cake, but there are definitely other options for people without a Guardian.

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Posted by: Obtena.7952

Obtena.7952

Bravo sir. The secrets of farming revealed … maybe not all of them

All very good information though it is worth noting that for Guardian, Hammer #2 tags extremely well and includes getting you closer to your target; a single #2 is all it usually takes to get lootrights. I’m not a big staff fan but I do see it’s value in the typical farming mayhem. Overall, quite a good guide on a little thought about aspect of the game.

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Posted by: Esmee.1067

Esmee.1067

The moment you realise that Vol’s sig wasn’t sarcasm. That was your sig right? How to make x-amount of gold/hour linking to staff 1? Likely amazing guide, it looks very well written and I’d test it if I wasn’t so crap at tagging with my guardian (slightly depressing yes.)

yay, a guide about how you should play A.K.A. take a guardian or scram…..

Like mentioned in the guide his experience mainly comes from Guardian and it’s his believe they are the best taggers, it doesn’t mean they, exclusively, can profit from this method. Most classes can be build to tag atleast reasonable:
Elementalist – Air Dagger #1 is quite decent but it will never be Staff #1 for Guardians, possibly Staff (Fire #1 and #2) FGS for Mobility (along with Utilities.)
Necromancer – Wells (spec into wells siphoning health if you insist on running all 3 so they deal damage and wells using groundtargetting) and place down marks beforehand/during. Warhorn #5 is decent damage aswell. Downside: lower mobility.
Engineer – Gradenier-trait for 3 grenades per throw which have different targets (so worst case you hit 5 mobs per ability, optimally 15, most realisticly somewhere in the middle.) Or bombkit can do a decent job (speedy kits for perma swiftness/rocket boots for mobility.)
Ranger – Traps (and traps use ground-targetting) Longbow #5, Axe #1, it isn’t great though.
Thief – Shortbow and any traits helping Shortbow, initiative or mobility. (Place Shortbow #4 preëmptively and #5 to get in melee-range and start spamming those cluster bombs #2.) Utilities obviously aimed at Mobility aswell, maybe Caltrops.
Warrior – Uhm, they’re suppose to be good at everything right? Axe #5 is decent. Greatsword #3 might hit something aswell and #2 if you know where the mobs become vulnerable.

Mesmers, ye scram. The phantasm/illusion mechanics has a bit too much build-up for this.

(edited by Esmee.1067)

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Posted by: Korossive.7085

Korossive.7085

Thank you for the guide, editing, and work, but this is very boring and inefficient.

Gold-wise your 12g/h is outdone by orders of magnitude using a level 2 alt TP flipping, requiring vastly less keys pressed, no grinding, no rushing, no guesting, nor any loading screens at all.

This is how it’s built. TP Wars 2.

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Posted by: Zaxares.5419

Zaxares.5419

Thanks for the guide, Vol. I’m not going to start doing this myself (as I find this sort of hardcore farming to be very tedious), but I eagerly anticipate the fall in T6 mat prices as it’ll make it easier for me to obtain them.

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Posted by: Beldin.5498

Beldin.5498

The interesting question is .. how much gold do you make per hour with that ?
Since 50-80g per week doesn’t take into account how much hours you play.

EVERY MMO is awesome until it is released then its unfinished. A month after release it just sucks.
Best MMOs are the ones that never make it. Therefore Stargate Online wins.

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Posted by: Electro.4173

Electro.4173

Great guide.

Shame I’m too lazy to capitalize on it. LOL.

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Posted by: Taku.6352

Taku.6352

Tl;DR: roll a guardian and spam staff 1 all day.

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Posted by: Yumiko Ishida.3769

Yumiko Ishida.3769

Great guide read most of it once I got the gist. Problem is, bad crap low-end Laptop. So I won’t be doing that any time soon. Happy farming everyone. I’ll be profiting on the back end I guess with cheaper mats and possibly selling needed stuff like insignias!

Yumiko Emi Ishida 80 Ele, Hikari Kyoko Ishida 80 Guard TC-NA. Active RPer of NA megaserver.

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Posted by: KarateKid.5648

KarateKid.5648

This is great, Vol. I’m not a fan of guardians, so I’ll run this on my Ele’s in rotation; but the structure of the strategy itself is fantastic!

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Posted by: kokiman.2364

kokiman.2364

I’ll be profiting on the back end I guess with cheaper mats and possibly selling needed stuff like insignias!

This guide wont influence the market. Those are known farming spots.

GuildWars 2

Currently playing Heart of Thorns.

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Posted by: Orangensaft.7139

Orangensaft.7139

The interesting question is .. how much gold do you make per hour with that ?
Since 50-80g per week doesn’t take into account how much hours you play.

he wrote 8-12g/ hour

and where do you have that 50-80g per week from???

“On a good week, I generate over 80 of each T6 mat along with two full stacks of Globs of Ectoplasm. This doesn’t even include all the other T5 mats that amount to 30-50g alone every week.”

that is:
~250g for the T6 mats
~185g for the ectos
+ the 30-50g from the T5 mats
+ other rare drops

We Glitched Out Of All [MAPS]
26x lvl 80 Characters
Most fabulous Character: http://i.imgur.com/5JtcBI1.jpg?1

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Posted by: Beldin.5498

Beldin.5498

The interesting question is .. how much gold do you make per hour with that ?
Since 50-80g per week doesn’t take into account how much hours you play.

he wrote 8-12g/ hour

and where do you have that 50-80g per week from???

“On a good week, I generate over 80 of each T6 mat along with two full stacks of Globs of Ectoplasm. This doesn’t even include all the other T5 mats that amount to 30-50g alone every week.”

I confused the 80 (of each) and the 30-50g every week i think

EVERY MMO is awesome until it is released then its unfinished. A month after release it just sucks.
Best MMOs are the ones that never make it. Therefore Stargate Online wins.

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Posted by: thehipone.6812

thehipone.6812

I have long suspected that t6 mats were somewhat overpriced relative to the ease of acquisition, despite the “everyone knows that you can’t farm t6/drop rates are terrible” opinion of many.

I think the big takeaways from this guide are:
1. Farming anything other than t6 mats is sub-optimal
2. It is all about kills per hour.

That said, I don’t know how someone could bear doing this over and over all week.

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Posted by: Infamous Darkness.3284

Infamous Darkness.3284

Vol,

For the Balthazar event, if you are on a server that is having difficulty completing it go to This Event and grab the weapon from This NPC note: not the one you pay money for only the weapon she gives you when the event is active it will last for 5~minutes and does great aoe damage for clearing waves. Also nice guide thank you.

Infamous Culverin(engi[Main]), one of every other class.
Karl Marx: “Go away! Last words are for fools who haven’t said enough!”

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Posted by: Zypher.7609

Zypher.7609

Great read, I still like the ~15g/hour of Karka farming if you have the needed people. And being that you do not mind the mind numbing farm. :P

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Posted by: Imperatora.7654

Imperatora.7654

are you running full zerk to get quicker tagging?

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Posted by: Vol.7601

Vol.7601

I wear zerk but it’s not mandatory. It just helps kill vets/champs quicker so that more waves spawn during an event.

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Posted by: One Note Chord.5031

One Note Chord.5031

Thank you for the guide, editing, and work, but this is very boring and inefficient.

Gold-wise your 12g/h is outdone by orders of magnitude using a level 2 alt TP flipping, requiring vastly less keys pressed, no grinding, no rushing, no guesting, nor any loading screens at all.

This is how it’s built. TP Wars 2.

It’s really all about balancing what you like to do with how much you want to make money. Yeah, playing the tp outstrips everything else by orders of magnitude, but some people just don’t have fun watching, learning, and expending the energy to keep track of markets. Some of us even pay people to do that for us irl precisely because we don’t enjoy it—I’m not going to spend my time in a video game doing something that I can’t even bring myself to do when it would make me real money.

Now, I also don’t enjoy farming enough to do Vol’s farm—I’d rather just be poor and continue to run dungeons/fotm—but the guide is a great resource for those people who don’t like playing the tp but do like farming.

Colin Johanson: "Everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the
best statistical loot in the game. We want everyone on an equal power base.”
Pre-launch, Colin listed things that make MMOs bad. They are all now in GW2.

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Posted by: OIIIIIO.7825

OIIIIIO.7825

Thief – Shortbow and any traits helping Shortbow, initiative or mobility. (Place Shortbow #4 preëmptively and #5 to get in melee-range and start spamming those cluster bombs #2.) Utilities obviously aimed at Mobility aswell, maybe Caltrops.

I would like to offer a suggestion/expand on the above for thieves.

Weapon-set: Short bow

Cluster bomb- Tagging (Make sure to detonate it)
Infiltrators Arrow -Movement
Choking gas is there but I would suggest using your ini for Cluster Bombs.

Heal
Signet of Malice

Utilities
Shadowstep – Movement
Infiltrators Signet – Movement + Ini regen
Free Slot (Roll for Ini, Signet of Shadows w/e floats your boat)

Elite Daggerstorm
Hits multiple targets, bounces, reflects

Ok when a new pack of mobs appears if you are not on their spawn already use a blink to get there and start cluster-bombing.

I hope that helps any thieves who want to try this farm, but don’t have a guardian yet.

A victor gives no quarter when the victor shows no clemency or mercy
and refuses to spare the life in return for the surrender at discretion (unconditional surrender)
of a vanquished opponent.

(edited by OIIIIIO.7825)

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Posted by: Zepidel.5349

Zepidel.5349

I’ve got a better guide lol

1.) Apply for minimum wage job
2.) Work until you get a pay check (2 weeks / 80 hours)
3.) Collect your ~650 dollars and quit
4.) Buy 650 dollars worth of gems (80,000)
5.) Exchange 80,000 gems for 5200 gold
6.) Buy a legendary or two after two weeks of farming

EZ ~50 gold per hour, much higher than this guide!

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Posted by: Flissy.4093

Flissy.4093

I’ve got a better guide lol

1.) Apply for minimum wage job
2.) Work until you get a pay check (2 weeks / 80 hours)
3.) Collect your ~650 dollars and quit
4.) Buy 650 dollars worth of gems (80,000)
5.) Exchange 80,000 gems for 5200 gold
6.) Buy a legendary or two after two weeks of farming

EZ ~50 gold per hour, much higher than this guide!

Sadly this is actually true. But of course, it only works with expendable income. I doubt people on a minimum wage can actually afford to spend their wages like that – unless you consider overtime (which a lot of minimum wage jobs don’t provide – at least where I live).

As for Vol’s guide, it’s nothing new to most people, but to a selection it is helpful. It’s also going to help with the T6 supply that will be lacking when even more people move on from champ trains after the much needed nerf. All for the cost of increasing the plague of Guardians thinking Staff is actually a good weapon – great …

Light Up the Darkness
“Dear ANet, nerf Paper, Scissors is fine. Sincerely, Rock”
Elysaurus | Warrior | [LOL] | League of the Legendary | Gandara (EU)

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Posted by: Esmee.1067

Esmee.1067

All for the cost of increasing the plague of Guardians thinking Staff is actually a good weapon – great …

Let’s face it, people that believe this is the way to play, most likely don’t read the forums, considering PvE-Guardian has one of the most well-composed guides. I can handle people playing like this, though I definitly preferred to avoid them, but I do mind when they go around telling people how to play, it might spread!

Vent-time, I had a Staff-spamming Guardian telling me I should use Staff because my weapons sucked big-time (Hammer + Greatsword in that situation, possible Sword/Focus + Greatsword, can’t recall exactly.) And that Guardians were useless without: “Stand you Ground” “Hold the Line” and “Signet of Judgement” I wonder if he thought Riverside suddently turned into Monsters and Eternal Battlegrounds into a Dungeon. You really think someone like that has ever read the forums?

(disclaimer: this judgement is based on content requiring a team where staff is usually not the best weapon to stay on for longer periods of time, I do agree it’s an amazing tagging-weapon.)

(edited by Esmee.1067)

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Posted by: Beldin.5498

Beldin.5498

I think everyone knows that the damage of Staff is bad, its just that you can tag more mobs in ranged damge. I also liked cleansing flames at the time when the tunnel events were a good farming source

EVERY MMO is awesome until it is released then its unfinished. A month after release it just sucks.
Best MMOs are the ones that never make it. Therefore Stargate Online wins.