Guild Wars 2

Disclaimer: Casual gamer, maybe two hours a day if that.

Is it just me or is the rate of income in GW2 low for an MMO?

I’ve taken five different classes through the Queensdale area now (having just started the game a couple weeks ago) and the highest is an elementalist that just hit 15. I tend to equip my lowbies in MMO’s with drops rather than buying anything. The only things I have really bought so far are food for the xp bonus and an odd weapon here or there where I hadn’t got an appropriate drop. No, all of my money goes to buy crafting mats…and not very much of that, hence the problem.

And yet, I’m still constantly hovering less than 5-10 silver.

I bounce around and do as many events as I see first-hand or notice someone posting in /yell. I do all the hearts in the area and, with my elementalist, have camped bandit and centaur spawns hoping to get jute drops. I hit just about every gathering node I can and bank everything but food. If something looks like it might be valuable, I put in on the trader and hope for the best.

Still…I’m not exactly raking in the money nor the crafting mats (trying to get tailor up as high as possible on my own).

Is it just what I’m doing/not doing, or is GW2 just a slow grind moneywise?

Gold rate is slow up until maybe lvl 76.

Once you can get to Cursed Shore, the money comes in.

Money comes in slow early on although you dont really need much at that point either.

To each thier own but my tips would be:

LEVELING
-Continue to do as many dynamic events (de) as you can if you are in a zone. The rewards are decent, leveling efficient, and often times they will help complete renown hearts in the area.

DROPS
-Pay attn to what you salvage and what you sell. Some of the starter blue weap drops (no level req) sell for around a silver – usually greatsword, dagger, staff, possibly some others. Get used to the ones that sell and TP them rather than vendoring.

-Most of the time it is only worth salvaging whites and even then rarely leather whites. Sometimes blues (very early ones that yield copper) but definitely not greens or yellow. Those you should vendor or put on the trading post. Remember the TP takes a 15% total cut from all sales (listing+sell fee) so if the vendor price is within 15% of the TP price, just vendor it.

GEARING
-This may be the most important given your op – although crafting seems like a logical way to keep yourself geared, it is rather cost-prohibitive. You are better just getting new gear every 5-10 levels on the TP most of the time. Blues and sometimes greens can often be had for a few copper above the vendor price, which you can recoup by vendoring when you are done. Think of it as renting gear for a few copper.

-Buy orders on the TP are your best friend if you are low on funds and dont need the item immediately. You can usually get a buy order filled reasonably quickly and save significantly.

CRAFTING
-Crafting is more of a money sink currently than anything. There are profits to be made in some markets but would require you to be high level and have the capital to level the craft in the first place which is usually 5+gold (with the exception of cooking, artificing, and possibly jc which are cheaper)

SUMMARY
Try to keep armor up to date every 5+ levels from the TP cheaply. Same with weapons. Continue to use cheap food. Have enough money to buy the trait training books at 11/40/60. Don’t worry about crafting yet. Just sell the mats if you need the money.

Thanks for the feedback. I know that crafting is most often a sink, but honestly, in most MMO’s I do it for fun.

If you still want to craft for the fun of it (I usually enjoy crafting as well) then another tip would be to pay attention to WHEN in the course of the week you do it. Hit “B” in game to pull up the WvW bonuses your server currently has. The upper left one is in reference to the crafting bonus, which increases your chance to get a “crit” on craft – additional xp from that single craft which translates to less individual crafts needed to level = saving money. WvW resets Friday evening every week so your world will have less of a bonus then and it will increase over the course of the week from 10% (starting) to 20% (max). Also, remember that to take advantage of this bonus you need to be crafting while zoned in to your own server (not guesting or on an overflow).

If I know I will be doing some crafting I usually gather the materials ahead of time and wait until wed-thurs-fri to do the actual crafting in order to save a bit of money.

Hope this all helps and enjoy the game!

Banana Stand has some really great advice. Also, keep in mind that you’re only lvl 15. You do’nt particularly need more than what you have. The higher level the zone, the more money you’re going to make. Running around queensdale for a few hours wont net you much money at all, but running around frostgorge or Cursed Shore especially for two hours can net you so much gold. I’d say to listen to Banana’s tips on what to salvage and sell, and just remember that you’re still a pretty low level. The money will pile up, unless you’re like me and constantly spending it on random stuff.

It’s also important to minimise your expenses. Here are two vital tips for doing that:

1. NEVER waypoint anywhere if you can help it. It may not seem like much at first, but all of those coppers/silvers eventually add up. If you’re bouncing around the map from waypoint to waypoint like a hyperactive blue hedgehog, you’re burning up quite a lot of money.

You can travel back to the main cities for free by clicking on the PvP tab (crossed swords icon) in the menu, then selecting “Go to the Mists”. From there, you can find an Asura Gate that takes you to Lion’s Arch for free, and from Lion’s Arch you can return to any capital city through another Asura Gate. You have to sit through a few loading screens, but it will save you money.

2. Don’t rush to repair your armor. Damaged armor has no defensive penalty; only when armor becomes “Broken” do you stop getting the bonuses from that piece. As a result, you can wait until all of your armor is damaged and the first one is broken before using a Repair Canister (if you have one) to fix it all in one go. At lower levels, you’ll often find that you’ll replace your damaged armor with drops long before it ever becomes a problem.

I would think for a newer player just selling the UNID dyes you get without opening them would finance an awful lot.

As you are leveling, completing zones, story line, and selling mob loot makes money. And if you want to make more, gathering ores, wood, and herbs to sell. Or find an area with creatures that are easy and fun to hunt, and just kill and sell all loots. I waited untill level 70 to craft because it was easier at that level to make enough gold to buy those ingredients that take longer to farm. Then used crafting to level from 70-80 in about an hour, so that it was easier (and more fun) to complete my level 70’s story/zones at 80

From my point of view, you don’t even need money. I saved everything for a legendary, and I have my main with 2 exotic armor sets (karma + dungeon tokens). It’s true that I spent some money on leveling my crafting skills, but I had more than enough with karma armor or drops. Actually, I only had issues with my alts, because I was speeding their leveling and jumping to higher level areas all the time.

Also, exploring maps is a great resource for getting money and materials.

While leveling my toon from 0-70 I got most of my gear from Karma vendors – saves alot of $$ and their gear is much much better than can be bought with $$ at vendors.

It seems that when your armor is actually broken – it will vanish off your toon – if you find it wandering around in its underware – time to get your armor repaired.

(actually I did not know about the WP or armor tricks – thanks)

Run dungeons or farm Karka. Both will wield you at minimum 1.5 gold per hour and at maximum about 3.5 gold per hour.