Guild Wars 2

Do any of you gather all of your own materials for crafting? I used to constantly farm elementals for their gem drops because I love jewelry crafting. Even though there are quicker ways to make gold and then just to outright buy the crafting materials I find it more rewarding and just straight up fun to get my own materials.

I generally love to farm when I play mmos especially for crafting purposes. I also measure my progress on the amount of coin I have so having to buy materials after farming for gold instead of gathering materials myself makes it seem like I’m taking a step backwards.

Hell no.

Well, unless picking up from TP counts gathering. :p

No. I can make more gold in that period of time doing other things. Just gathering is far less time efficient. If it’s something that you enjoy though, then do it. It’s a game after all. Have fun

I do go out and gather, but that is just me… I am fully aware that it is not “time efficient” but I am always out doing something and gather while I am out and about. I don’t try to maximize my playtime and just relax and enjoy myself. I think if more people played the game casually and didn’t worry so much about doing everything as quick and efficient as possible.. usually stressing them out in the process.. they would have a lot more fun.

The moment I start treating a game like an assembly line where I have to X number of things in Y time in order to meet a goal of max gold per hour (or whatever goal you have) then I quit the game bc it has turned in to a job.

For my main, I maxed all crafting professions, and I don’t think I bought much of anything. Maybe for my exotic armor, but I can’t remember that far back. For my alts, when I started maxing 2 disciplines on each of them (because I didn’t want to have to pay 50s each time I wanted a different discipline) I bought most of the t2-t4 fine crafting mats (by the time I got to the 4th-6th discipline). I do have a hoard of t1 and t5 mats just from running around and killing things though, and thankfully Zypher Scantum took up most of my common crafting mats, so I’m still restocking up after it.

I do go somewhat out of my way on some maps to go to the various gathering farm spots (need to make that infinite sickle pay for itself eventually) and usually I’ll hit any tree or ore I see on map while doing world bosses.

But yeah like people said, do what you find is fun. I do like gathering and crafting to an extent, but I usually get shafted most by my own personal playstyle (don’t like zones that give X mat so I’m usually low on them, same thing with some types of mobs).

I enjoy playing the game, so I do a decent amount of gathering while doing events, map completion, leveling, etc.

That said, I don’t usually do targeted gathering of anything other than wood or ore (because they are easy to find).

I have done some herb runs in the past when I noticed price spikes on the TP, but the RNG involved in which nodes spawn and what you get from the nodes makes that very annoying.

mtpelion.4562:

I have done some herb runs in the past when I noticed price spikes on the TP, but the RNG involved in which nodes spawn and what you get from the nodes makes that very annoying.

You can always hit up the various “farms” in game that have larger numbers of the items in them. There are always multiple units of nodes at each one and it resets every 23 hours. Not steady income, but if you are in the area then you can always grab them and sell if you aren’t going to use them.

Takarazuka.3025:

mtpelion.4562:

I have done some herb runs in the past when I noticed price spikes on the TP, but the RNG involved in which nodes spawn and what you get from the nodes makes that very annoying.

You can always hit up the various “farms” in game that have larger numbers of the items in them. There are always multiple units of nodes at each one and it resets every 23 hours. Not steady income, but if you are in the area then you can always grab them and sell if you aren’t going to use them.

I usually hit the farms, but other than grapes they don’t have the “paydirt” herbs.

hmmm yes but im not a very active crafter.

I do have all my crafting skills and craft most of my own gear but I’m not a “factory” if you get what I mean.

For my own needs, I do get all my own materials (I can say this after more than 1K hours playing,… I remember back in my leveling days materials being a problem to keep my gear up to date with my level using crafted items).

I prefer to gather my own materials, however ArenaNet has made it impossible to do so for crafting things such as legendaries and other exotic (meaning the weapon, not the stats) items (i.e. Mystic Crescent).
The Crown Pavillion was the first time I’ve had the opportunity to collect 250 of any T6 mat, and that was just the vicious claws which were dropping like crazy (which I find suspicious, since Anet is planning to remove one of the 3 stats that claws provide).

Outside of the CP, after a week of “farming” half an hour in a zone, in order to account for Farming Punishment (a.k.a. DR), the number of T6 mats I recieved in that time would equate to 2 years+ of farming in order to get all the T6 required for a legendary. This doesn’t include the rarity of orb drops when mining Orichalcum.

ArenaNet hates the few of us who do find enjoyment in crafting from the ground up.

The only thing I gather for myself is orichalcum ore when I’m working on a legendary. I could probably make the money to buy it in the time it takes to gather it, but I just like to be able to say, nope. Don’t need to spend THAT 40g. Everything else, I buy off the trading post.

The only thing I’m real conscience of gathering myself is the expensive mats like orichalcum. I needed 500 ingots for my legendary and I sure wasn’t going to buy those all.

If I’m running somewhere I also gather most anything along the way, but don’t go out of my way for mats. That’s gotten me some stacks to keep the bank stocked and anymore I get is sold. If I’m on a crafting spree and run out, I’ll just buy some more.

Yes – if I am crafting things for my own use or a friend
No – if I am crafting things for profit

I rarely buy crafting mats on the TP.

But I also have mental maps of all possible node locations for a few zones – I spend a lot of time wandering and harvesting.

CC Danicia.1394:

Aberrant.6749:

If it’s something that you enjoy though, then do it. It’s a game after all. Have fun

This is why I harvest. I quite enjoy exploring the world and gathering everything myself.

Even more reason for Anet to add a feature that allows your characters to get dirty and sweaty when using harvesting tools. It would add a tiny bit of realism to the game!

When I was leveling my cook, I harvested a lot for that and also found all the food karma vendors. She is also a tailor so I farmed for tailor materials.

Now I don’t specifically look for things. I harvest for the daily and harvest as I pass things. I salvage white items for materials too.

Too bad gathering mats yourself is incredibly more time consuming than just farming gold and buying them. It’s also less fun.

Gasoline.2570:

Too bad gathering mats yourself is incredibly more time consuming than just farming gold and buying them. It’s also less fun.

To me that just shows that many mats are undervalued. Fun is very subjective.

Wish.5637:

Do any of you gather all of your own materials for crafting?

Of course. But I do not farm, I just pick up everything that I find along the way while playing normally. This usually suffices for 95% of my crafting. When crafting and I am missing some ingredients, I usually just postpone the crafting to later when I have all the material I need. In the rare occasion that I absolutely have to craft NOW, I just buy the missing pieces from the TP.

With maybe the exception of the scarce supply of some of the low to mid tier crafting materials during leveling, I find GW2’s system the most well-designed and stress-free crafting system I ever played in an MMO.

~MRA

I have for many things as I enjoy being able to complete things w/o use of the tp, BUT they have made it so incredibly time consuming that it sucks all the fun out of it. On top of that some items are just flat out impossible to farm in quantities needed in any sort of reasonable amount of time.

This game is way too focused on the tp imo and it ruins a lot of the fun.

Essence Snow.3194:

I have for many things as I enjoy being able to complete things w/o use of the tp, BUT they have made it so incredibly time consuming that it sucks all the fun out of it. On top of that some items are just flat out impossible to farm in quantities needed in any sort of reasonable amount of time.

This game is way too focused on the tp imo and it ruins a lot of the fun.

That’s very true as far as the gathering of certain items goes. I would include things like vanilla beans in this. However what you can do is gather up other items and sell them to buy those beans. Personally I regularly farm lemongrass. I know where the nodes are for this in the str8’s of devastation. I farm those nodes on multiple characters quite quickly a few times a day. These sell for almost 10s each. That is the equiv of 3 beans…

Yes the TP is involved, but again like I stated before… that just tells me that certain items are still undervalued… and again fun is very subjective.

Also with 500 crafting inc. and us not knowing what will be required… it would be who of you to stock up on everything. There very well may be price spikes on specific hard to obtain mats in the near future.

I have master crafter and just always notice something useful around me. I pick it up, put it in my pocket. I rarely go out looking for things, they just appear in front of me when I travel the world. Well maybe Orich I sometimes hunt for, but I do it while I’m waiting for like temple assaults to start etc. Pretty much, yep, most of my mats.

I only tend to gather the expensive mats to level up my crafting (I believe from T4 onward it gets expensive to have 64 of each material in order to discover every stat combination >.> ).

I also like to have my collections with 250 of everything (no I don’t have 250 jack-a-lopes, mostly about materials) so I tend to gather every node and fight every enemy in hopes that they will give me some materials.

CC Danicia.1394:

Aberrant.6749:

If it’s something that you enjoy though, then do it. It’s a game after all. Have fun

This is why I harvest. I quite enjoy exploring the world and gathering everything myself.

How do you harvest 250 of each T6 and 100 Onyx Lodestones? I was looking for this answer since forever

CC Danicia.1394:

Aberrant.6749:

If it’s something that you enjoy though, then do it. It’s a game after all. Have fun

This is why I harvest. I quite enjoy exploring the world and gathering everything myself.

Yes, but are you harvesting to build a legendary weapon? And, no offense, but do Anet employees have the luxury of no Diminishing Returns and higher drop rates? I’m not pulling numbers out of the air when it comes to the amount, or lack of, T6 mats that drop when trying to gather materials under the iron fist of DR.

I’ve said it before, and I’ve detailed it on my blog. Legendaries need to take a long time to make, but they need a defined path as well, including some time gating. It could be argued that Diminishing Returns is time gating, but combined with several other issues involved, it’s over the top. Again, in your spare time when you get the chance to explore and harvest stuff, how often do you get an Opal orb? You need 100 of them, and 100 Chrysocola orbs to craft something like The Dreamer, and they don’t drop from nearly as many sources as things like Crystalline Dust.

Not unless I wanna get banned for botting. It’s like the “Salem Bot Hunt” here. My nephew got banned from this game for botting when I know for a fact he wasn’t. He was under the mistaken impression he could just farm all day… heh. Sad.

I do. I’ve only ever bought two insignias off the TP, otherwise EVERYTHING ive crafted is farmed and forged by my own hands c:

Usually i collect myself but sometime i buy something that is missing or ask my friends.

Mesket.5728:

CC Danicia.1394:

Aberrant.6749:

If it’s something that you enjoy though, then do it. It’s a game after all. Have fun

This is why I harvest. I quite enjoy exploring the world and gathering everything myself.

How do you harvest 250 of each T6 and 100 Onyx Lodestones? I was looking for this answer since forever

Well I would have said ember farm but that got nerfed. Champ boxes are still really good for t5/t6/cores/lodestones though… you just won’t be getting them in the same quantities as they were in CS a couple of weeks ago.

Frost champ farm is still going on, and then we have the current living story (just stick to the champ spawns). It would take you a while, but you could do it this way.

It’ll also give you nummy karma vials + karma for event completion for obby shards, and skill points for upgrading some of those t5’s→6 or cores→lodestones if you wanted.

I do try to farm all of my own materials (and with 5 “mains”, I almost always have enough by the time I finish maps on them), but sometimes I do have shortfalls, and so I do turn to the TP at times if the price on the mats is cheap enough.

Aberrant.6749:

Mesket.5728:

CC Danicia.1394:

Aberrant.6749:

If it’s something that you enjoy though, then do it. It’s a game after all. Have fun

This is why I harvest. I quite enjoy exploring the world and gathering everything myself.

How do you harvest 250 of each T6 and 100 Onyx Lodestones? I was looking for this answer since forever

Well I would have said ember farm but that got nerfed. Champ boxes are still really good for t5/t6/cores/lodestones though… you just won’t be getting them in the same quantities as they were in CS a couple of weeks ago.

Frost champ farm is still going on, and then we have the current living story (just stick to the champ spawns). It would take you a while, but you could do it this way.

It’ll also give you nummy karma vials + karma for event completion for obby shards, and skill points for upgrading some of those t5’s->6 or cores->lodestones if you wanted.

First of all thanks because I understand you are trying to help. My point was that you can’t harvest this kind of things… you have to rely (like you said) on things that randomly gives you this kind of mats. You don’t get scales from lizards or claws from bears if you get what I mean. The drop chance is so ridiculous that it would take you decades to get them all.

I gather pretty much everything I see, but I don’t craft very often (not much reason to atm). That means when I do need to craft something, I generally have everything I need, with the exception of the exceptionally rare stuff like lodestones.

Unfortunately, selling materials has been far more lucrative for me than selling finished products. Occasionally finding spots to farm materials that are rare on the TP is a fun part of exploring.

I just make sure I have 250 of the material (and its processed equivalent, like planks) in my bank before I start selling extras.

I harvest every node I come across in my exploration, but I very rarely specifically go into an area trying to find specific materials. I have “farmed” Dredgehaunt Cliffs for Gold and Bloodtide Coast for Platnum but mostly because of their easy access to a hub city.

I’m certainly not opposed to buying materials from the TP when I’m crafting and come up short, but I’d say I harvest a good 75% – 95% of my own materials.

Mesket.5728:

Aberrant.6749:

Mesket.5728:

CC Danicia.1394:

Aberrant.6749:

If it’s something that you enjoy though, then do it. It’s a game after all. Have fun

This is why I harvest. I quite enjoy exploring the world and gathering everything myself.

How do you harvest 250 of each T6 and 100 Onyx Lodestones? I was looking for this answer since forever

Well I would have said ember farm but that got nerfed. Champ boxes are still really good for t5/t6/cores/lodestones though… you just won’t be getting them in the same quantities as they were in CS a couple of weeks ago.

Frost champ farm is still going on, and then we have the current living story (just stick to the champ spawns). It would take you a while, but you could do it this way.

It’ll also give you nummy karma vials + karma for event completion for obby shards, and skill points for upgrading some of those t5’s->6 or cores->lodestones if you wanted.

First of all thanks because I understand you are trying to help. My point was that you can’t harvest this kind of things… you have to rely (like you said) on things that randomly gives you this kind of mats. You don’t get scales from lizards or claws from bears if you get what I mean. The drop chance is so ridiculous that it would take you decades to get them all.

Yea the drop rate used to be higher, but they were over farmed/dropping too many (according to a-net) and then nerfed. : /

CC Danicia.1394:

Aberrant.6749:

If it’s something that you enjoy though, then do it. It’s a game after all. Have fun

This is why I harvest. I quite enjoy exploring the world and gathering everything myself.

Can’t count the number of times I’ve died in World vs World because rather than keeping up with the zerg/combat I’ve stopped in the middle of it to do some combat lumberjacking!

I gather mine, i refuse to buy something I can earn on my own. Nothing against anyone that does buy for w/e reason. After all thats what the tp is there for. For me, its a personal (play my own way) thing. And I am a miser when it comes to spending money.

Yah gathering by just getting out and moving around the world is about the only … Abnegation … I still find I can do in this game for hours on end.

i gather my own as well..

I harvest a lot of T2-4 mats, but only to sell, not to craft. I have all crafts maxed so no need to keep these around, and certain ones provide a very steady income. I do a daily run through 3 particular mid-level maps just for the nodes.

I always keep the T5-6 mats I harvest. With T5, I will either promote to T6 if worthwhile or use to craft rares for the MF. I stock pile all the T6 and use only rarely if I need to respecc a build.

I would not buy mats off the TP which I can gather myself. But I will buy materials off the TP which come only as drop, such as the fine crafting materials if I don’t have enough of those.

Aberrant.6749:

Mesket.5728:

Aberrant.6749:

Mesket.5728:

CC Danicia.1394:

Aberrant.6749:

If it’s something that you enjoy though, then do it. It’s a game after all. Have fun

This is why I harvest. I quite enjoy exploring the world and gathering everything myself.

How do you harvest 250 of each T6 and 100 Onyx Lodestones? I was looking for this answer since forever

Well I would have said ember farm but that got nerfed. Champ boxes are still really good for t5/t6/cores/lodestones though… you just won’t be getting them in the same quantities as they were in CS a couple of weeks ago.

Frost champ farm is still going on, and then we have the current living story (just stick to the champ spawns). It would take you a while, but you could do it this way.

It’ll also give you nummy karma vials + karma for event completion for obby shards, and skill points for upgrading some of those t5’s->6 or cores->lodestones if you wanted.

First of all thanks because I understand you are trying to help. My point was that you can’t harvest this kind of things… you have to rely (like you said) on things that randomly gives you this kind of mats. You don’t get scales from lizards or claws from bears if you get what I mean. The drop chance is so ridiculous that it would take you decades to get them all.

Yea the drop rate used to be higher, but they were over farmed/dropping too many (according to a-net) and then nerfed. : /

The drop rate was fine for none farmers… I used to get not many but enough in Orr lands, problem started when the farmers flooded the DEs. Nerfing the drop rate was the first messure, then the DR but they forget to put rates back up after

CC Danicia.1394:

Aberrant.6749:

If it’s something that you enjoy though, then do it. It’s a game after all. Have fun

This is why I harvest. I quite enjoy exploring the world and gathering everything myself.

Outside of wood, ore, cloth and leather.. how is this possible? Have you really gathered all the fine mats you need for leveling all crafters? How about some of the rarer cooking ingredients, t6 mats or lodestones? You can’t reliably gather many things and instead must resort to the TP. It’s actually one of my biggest gripes with this game as in others, I always gathered everything myself since I disliked paying other people for something.

Lothirieth.3408:

CC Danicia.1394:

Aberrant.6749:

If it’s something that you enjoy though, then do it. It’s a game after all. Have fun

This is why I harvest. I quite enjoy exploring the world and gathering everything myself.

Outside of wood, ore, cloth and leather.. how is this possible? Have you really gathered all the fine mats you need for leveling all crafters? How about some of the rarer cooking ingredients, t6 mats or lodestones? You can’t reliably gather many things and instead must resort to the TP. It’s actually one of my biggest gripes with this game as in others, I always gathered everything myself since I disliked paying other people for something.

Heck I did it for my main. And it was only when I got to putting 2 crafting skills (around craft 4-5, or 6-7 if you include my main) on each of my alts to avoid switching that I had to start buying t2-t4 crafting mats.

The only things I really bought off the TP for the first couple of months were my superior runes for my armor (maybe some t6 mats for my dungeon/fractal gear too, but I can’t remember).

It all comes down to time and how much you run around. I killed enough from getting world completion to not have too much trouble leveling up crafting on my main. But I didn’t rush it, it took a couple of months. And when I thought I had a good hours worth of mats, I used a crafting booster to help me along. I did the same for most of my alts. But I had so many cooking ingredients that it was a breeze to level up on my alt, and the same for jewelery. Towards the end I just started running out of cloth and the t2-t4 crafting mats, but my bank is basically full of all t1 and t5 mats. (If I liked using the forge I bet I could have gotten around it more, or just went out and killed more while level/exploring with my alts, but with the crafting to 500 getting announced in July, I wanted to speed things along).

It depends.
If we are talking ore, wood or plants then yes, I gather my own, though some of the cooking ingredients are a bit annoying to gather in acceptable quantities.

If we are talking rare or worse – sorry, higher – rarity crafting materials, it’s about fifty-fifty for me.
It can be tricky to farm certain materials directly because there are so few mobs for them sometimes. Paired with the anti-farming diminishing return algorithm thas has been said to be in place, that might be an annoying prospect.
Honestly though, I don’t think I’ve ever been a victim of said algorithm so I could never confirm wether it exists or not. I simply can’t farm the same mobs for too long periods before the boredom outweighs the “I’d like to build that now”-motivational factor.

I attempt to keep material purchases to a minimum and harvest most of my materials myself. I only make small purchases of ores and scraps when I absolutely need them, otherwise I usually wait to make stuff until I have the materials gathered myself.

With stuff like T6 fine mats and rare crafting materials (Lodestones >.>) that’s just not realistic, though. I don’t want to spend months on end just trying to gather the materials to make a set of gear for a single character (I’ve got 5 level 80’s at this point, and none of them are fully geared yet). Especially with all these Living Story events pushing me into non-level 80 areas where those types of materials come even less frequently than they normally would.

Heck, said LS chapters pushing me out of high level areas have depleted most of my ore / wood stockpiles as well, by this point. I think I’m completely out of Ancient Wood and almost completely out of Orichalcum. I built up a decent stockpile during Secrets of Southsun, but its gone now.

MRA.4758:

Wish.5637:

Do any of you gather all of your own materials for crafting?

Of course. But I do not farm, I just pick up everything that I find along the way while playing normally. This usually suffices for 95% of my crafting. When crafting and I am missing some ingredients, I usually just postpone the crafting to later when I have all the material I need. In the rare occasion that I absolutely have to craft NOW, I just buy the missing pieces from the TP.

With maybe the exception of the scarce supply of some of the low to mid tier crafting materials during leveling, I find GW2’s system the most well-designed and stress-free crafting system I ever played in an MMO.

~MRA

I agree, and I gather most of my stuff too, my only beef is with the rare materials that I’m pretty sure they intended to drop more often than they do considering they are needed to craft even the simplest of runes and even for a grawl snowman potion (which requires a glacial lodestone…..) if those drop rates on that stuff was ever fixed to something reasonable, I don’t think I would ever have need to visit the TP for materials.