Guild Wars 2

If you want to get 250 of a given T6 crafting material, you can use laurels. At a rate of 3 per day, assuming the price of a given mat is similar to the price of the others, that would take slightly more than 80 days – a bit of time, sure, but at least it’s reliable: you know what you will get, when you get, and you don’t need to buy it from the TP.

We have nothing like that for Lodestones, or similar materials.

Lodestones are only available from a few enemies, through a very low drop rate; from Orr boxes, at a very low drop rate; from a few dungeons, at an exceptionally low drop rate; and from the Fractal chest, preferably at high levels. None of those ways is actually reliable – far more often than not, you will not get a Lodestone through them.

I wish ArenaNet would introduce a reliable way to get the Lodestones, even if it’s a very slow one. Receiving one in exchange for 10 laurels? Receiving one (per week per account) after doing one of the Orr Temple events? Even if slow (even the most expensive of them goes at most for 2.5 gold, and people who want to can make far more than that in 10 days or in a week), at least it would be reliable, and wouldn’t require using the TP.

the new champoin bags drop cores and loadstones tho;)

Korsbaek.9803:

the new champoin bags drop cores and loadstones tho;)

Exactly. Since the new champ loot bags have gone live, I have gone from having ZERO (yes, zero) cores or lodestones to having AT LEAST 3 of every type of lodestone (up to 15 of some) and a minimum of 60 of every type of core. Now, having said that, I have opened well north of 5k champ loot bags…

Heh, I’ve got 1 Crystal Lodestone, 1 Corrupted Lodestone, 4 Destroyer Lodestones (guess why?), and about 1 – 3 Cores of each type. However, I haven’t been doing that much hardcore Pavilion or Champ farming, which actually speaks volumes for the increased supply of Cores/Lodestones being pumped into the economy.

azurrei.5691:

Now, having said that, I have opened well north of 5k champ loot bags…

Yeah >.>

We don’t have any reliable way to get them. It’s the same thing T6 crafting mats were before the laurel merchants – there were many sources who could give them, but more often than not you would kill stuff and they would not give you the mats, rather something else.

Same with the Orr boxes, the champion boxes, and so on. There is a low chance to get the Lodestones, but it’s far from being reliable.

I wish we had a more stable way to get them. You could open 1.000 boxes and not get a single Lodestone, even if on average you would have ended with a couple. The laurel system can be time consuming, but at least it doesn’t rely on RNG.

there is a reliable way got farm the mobs dropping the stone and kill enough of them and your bound to get a loadstone simple as that

Korsbaek.9803:

your bound to get a loadstone

Nope, you aren’t. You can kill thousands of the enemies that can drop a lodestone and not get a single one.

RNG is RNG. That’s how it works. And that’s why it’s not reliable.

There has always been a reliable way to get all lodestones. The Trading Post. The changes is just a means to push the prices down. Most of them have dropped from 20% to around 30% since a month ago. Except molten but that is due to the dungeon charges and fewer people farming CoF. Crystal lodestone price increase is probably due to Superior Rune of Perplexity. All the cores except molten has also dropped in price.

Erasculio.2914:

Korsbaek.9803:

your bound to get a loadstone

Nope, you aren’t. You can kill thousands of the enemies that can drop a lodestone and not get a single one.

RNG is RNG. That’s how it works. And that’s why it’s not reliable.

yes you are but i did not say how many you need to kill for the loadstone to drop is tho.
its simple math that works with proberbilty the same is true for the MF.

Korsbaek, with any probability below 1, you can never be sure to have 1 at one point in time. This is simple (real) math.

Couldn’t we say that the TP is a reliable way to get them?

Step 1: Acquire gold
Step 2: Open the TP
Step 3: Search for the desired lodestone
Step 4: ?
Step 5: PROFIT!

The number of cores I’m pulling out of champ-loot bags makes me think I’m pretty close to having a definite and consistent way of getting them…

I’m also still reasonably satisfied with the number of lodestones I’d get out of big runs of Orrian Jewelry Boxes.

There are already ways of acquiring them, and they’re not suppose to be common.

Fror.2163:

Korsbaek, with any probability below 1, you can never be sure to have 1 at one point in time. This is simple (real) math.

that is true but with a 0,(close to indefinte)01% chance of not getting one at a given time i will begin to doubt that it will happen for anyone.
with a large enough sample there will in that sample of 20-40k kills there will be a so high chance of a loadstone that i dont even will begin to aruge it(we can then agien argue if the drop chance is to low but thats diffrent)

I think OP wants a way to get lodestones with 0 effort.

i.e. log-in, kill a few mobs, and end up with 100 Charged Lodestones.

Vol.5241:

I think OP wants a way to get lodestones with 0 effort.

i.e. log-in, kill a few mobs, and end up with 100 Charged Lodestones.

Based on how easily some people claim they are generating gold that is pretty much possible too!

Khisanth.2948:

Vol.5241:

I think OP wants a way to get lodestones with 0 effort.

i.e. log-in, kill a few mobs, and end up with 100 Charged Lodestones.

Based on how easily some people claim they are generating gold that is pretty much possible too!

Well, ignoring how inflation would have a hand on that, in the long-run it wouldn’t make any difference.

Tbh, for when it was farmable, Deadeye was a good source of Charged Lodestones.
I think they even dropped in price cause of him.

Lodestones are starting to become more common. That means more people with the same Legendary running around. Sad penguin is sad.

I’m not seeing any more Infinite Light wielders this month than last – and I’m closing in on mine .

Vol.5241:

I think OP wants a way to get lodestones with 0 effort.

“Zero effort” as in doing something as mindless as exploiting an event in Orr by spamming auto-attack on a staff guardian? Or does anyone actually believe that kind of behavior requires skill?

I’ll quote the relevant part of my post again, for those who just skimmed without reading:

Erasculio.2914:

I wish ArenaNet would introduce a reliable way to get the Lodestones, even if it’s a very slow one. Receiving one in exchange for 10 laurels? Receiving one (per week per account) after doing one of the Orr Temple events? Even if slow (even the most expensive of them goes at most for 2.5 gold, and people who want to can make far more than that in 10 days or in a week), at least it would be reliable, and wouldn’t require using the TP.

I believe you might be trying too hard to acquire something that shouldn’t need that much effort for acquisition. Let’s take capping the Dwayna temple for instance. Beating the statue at the end pops the big chest, from which I’ve almost always gotten either a charged core or a lode. Now if this isn’t reliable I don’t know what is.

And if you have cores and lots of them, spend 10 of those hard-earned laurels on 10 Mystic Binding Agents together with a pile of T6 dust and a crystal at the forge. Bang, you’ve now converted cores into lodes. The champ bags now offer a rather reliable way of acquiring cores at the very least so that gives you a very good platform to work from.

Valandil Dragonhart.2371:

I believe you might be trying too hard to acquire something that shouldn’t need that much effort for acquisition. Let’s take capping the Dwayna temple for instance. Beating the statue at the end pops the big chest, from which I’ve almost always gotten either a charged core or a lode. Now if this isn’t reliable I don’t know what is.

And if you have cores and lots of them, spend 10 of those hard-earned laurels on 10 Mystic Binding Agents together with a pile of T6 dust and a crystal at the forge. Bang, you’ve now converted cores into lodes. The champ bags now offer a rather reliable way of acquiring cores at the very least so that gives you a very good platform to work from.

I mostly agree except for the use of the MBA. Spending time gated currency for something that can be bought with gold seems like a terrible idea.

Erasculio.2914:

Vol.5241:

I think OP wants a way to get lodestones with 0 effort.

“Zero effort” as in doing something as mindless as exploiting an event in Orr by spamming auto-attack on a staff guardian? Or does anyone actually believe that kind of behavior requires skill?

I’ll quote the relevant part of my post again, for those who just skimmed without reading:

Erasculio.2914:

I wish ArenaNet would introduce a reliable way to get the Lodestones, even if it’s a very slow one. Receiving one in exchange for 10 laurels? Receiving one (per week per account) after doing one of the Orr Temple events? Even if slow (even the most expensive of them goes at most for 2.5 gold, and people who want to can make far more than that in 10 days or in a week), at least it would be reliable, and wouldn’t require using the TP.

Seems you missed my post, so I’ll help you out by going into more specifics:

Lodestones are easy to acquire now. My personal rate of return is about 2 per invasion map, or roughly 45 minutes of play. While they are still rare, they’re so much easier to get. The fact that you don’t want to put effort into getting them is akin to asking for Anet to just mail you a stack.

That has me curious, Penguin. I do usually walk away with 2 cores, but I’m rarely seeing any lodestones even out of the 20-25ish champ loot bags per invasion.

Any further details you can share?

Nike.2631:

That has me curious, Penguin. I do usually walk away with 2 cores, but I’m rarely seeing any lodestones even out of the 20-25ish champ loot bags per invasion.

Any further details you can share?

Sure. I get both Lodestones and cores. If I add in the cores, I get maybe 3+ Lodestones per invasion run.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Lodestones are easy to acquire now. My personal rate of return is about 2 per invasion map, or roughly 45 minutes of play. While they are still rare, they’re so much easier to get.

Same thing with the arguments about CoE: “oh, it gives one Charged Lodestone per run”, meanwhile I have a character in CoE armor and I got no Core or Lodestone drop from there.

Do you know what that is?

RNG.

“Reliable”, in many ways, is the opposite of RNG in this game.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

The fact that you don’t want to put effort into getting them is akin to asking for Anet to just mail you a stack.

Here, here, I’ll repeat it for players who are afraid others will get their shiny loot:

Erasculio.2914:

I wish ArenaNet would introduce a reliable way to get the Lodestones, even if it’s a very slow one. Receiving one in exchange for 10 laurels? Receiving one (per week per account) after doing one of the Orr Temple events? Even if slow (even the most expensive of them goes at most for 2.5 gold, and people who want to can make far more than that in 10 days or in a week), at least it would be reliable, and wouldn’t require using the TP.

Erasculio.2914:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Lodestones are easy to acquire now. My personal rate of return is about 2 per invasion map, or roughly 45 minutes of play. While they are still rare, they’re so much easier to get.

Same thing with the arguments about CoE: “oh, it gives one Charged Lodestone per run”, meanwhile I have a character in CoE armor and I got no Core or Lodestone drop from there.

Do you know what that is?

RNG.

“Reliable”, in many ways, is the opposite of RNG in this game.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

The fact that you don’t want to put effort into getting them is akin to asking for Anet to just mail you a stack.

Here, here, I’ll repeat it for players who are afraid others will get their shiny loot:

Erasculio.2914:

I wish ArenaNet would introduce a reliable way to get the Lodestones, even if it’s a very slow one. Receiving one in exchange for 10 laurels? Receiving one (per week per account) after doing one of the Orr Temple events? Even if slow (even the most expensive of them goes at most for 2.5 gold, and people who want to can make far more than that in 10 days or in a week), at least it would be reliable, and wouldn’t require using the TP.

You just mixed the terms “RNG” and “RELIABLE” in the same argument. So in essence, you just answered your own quoted question.

edit – Just to add, Lodestones are not tokens. They are a high level material, like Powerful Bloods and Armored Scales. Just wanted to be sure you understand that. So to simplify the argument at hand, the only “reliable” way to get a T6 mat is to fight monsters and hope for drops. And the more drops you get, the more chances you have at getting a rare item.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

You just mixed the terms “RNG” and “RELIABLE” in the same argument. So in essence, you just answered your own quoted question.

I strongly suggest reading that line again. Why not, read the entire post again a couple times, may be useful. The line you bolded:

“I wish ArenaNet would introduce a reliable way to get the Lodestones, even if it’s a very slow one”

Means, ArenaNet could add a way to get materials that requires no random drops (as in, no RNG? You know, “random number generator”?). So instead of the current system, in which someone could spend a month killing enemies and get no lodestone, while someone else could spend the same one month killing the same enemies and get a stack of them… We could have a system in which a player knows exactly what he has to do in order to get Lodestones, with a known amount of effort. You know, something like what we mean with the word “reliable”.

Erasculio.2914:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

You just mixed the terms “RNG” and “RELIABLE” in the same argument. So in essence, you just answered your own quoted question.

I strongly suggest reading that line again. Why not, read the entire post again a couple times, may be useful. The line you bolded:

“I wish ArenaNet would introduce a reliable way to get the Lodestones, even if it’s a very slow one”

Means, ArenaNet could add a way to get materials that requires no random drops (as in, no RNG? You know, “random number generator”?). So instead of the current system, in which someone could spend a month killing enemies and get no lodestone, while someone else could spend the same one month killing the same enemies and get a stack of them… We could have a system in which a player knows exactly what he has to do in order to get Lodestones, with a known amount of effort. You know, something like what we mean with the word “reliable”.

someone could do that yes but if they spend equal time and gets equal amounts of kills with same type of enemies where one of them gets a stack of loadstones and one gets none then ill ask if it experiment can be done one more time and does the result repeat like that then there is proberly something wrong in the game also know as a bug.
ofc there are some people more lucky then others getting loadstones and stuff but my gess in the end of the year we all get approxmently the same per kill, the diffrence is then how we use it

Erasculio.2914:

Korsbaek.9803:

your bound to get a loadstone

Nope, you aren’t. You can kill thousands of the enemies that can drop a lodestone and not get a single one.

RNG is RNG. That’s how it works. And that’s why it’s not reliable.

So there arent any reliable ways to get ectos as well, as they are only obtained by salvaging rare/exos and involve the chance that you get 0 ectos fro a salvage?

You must be extremely lucky, Penguin. From the 14 Invasions I’ve taken part in, I’ve gotten perhaps about 5 – 6 Cores (including 3 Piles of Essences, which are pretty worthless), and just 1 Onyx Lodestone. On all invasions I get an average of 14 – 20 Champion Bags, although if I’m not trying to complete the event (because the timer’s too low and it’s pointless), I can get more if I’m farming Aetherblade Champions, maybe up to 30.

While the Lodestone drops are RNG based, the Invasion maps provide so much opportunity to get them. Over the course of 45 minutes per map, my average Exotic chest drop is about 40. That number includes all types of Champion loot (existing mob, Aetherblade, Clockwork, Molten, etc). But there are other bags that drop Lodestones too. So on a high level Invasion map, go ahead and add another 30+ loot bags. You have 70 chances each hour to get a Lodestone. RNG is RNG, so you may walk away with nothing. But with more chances to get them, Lodestones are no longer ultra rare. They fell a tier down to simple rare. This is how I’ve been able to get so many Lodestones and Cores daily this past week.

And the evidence on the TP is overwhelming. All my Lodestones have plummeted in value (maybe more than 33%). I need to wait a long time before the value goes back my acceptable levels of trade.

I didnt scroll over what everyone else said so sorry if I am redundant. My experience so far in obtaining Lodestones is limited to charged lodestones / cores to convert to the charged lodestones. For those I get a few from CoE exp, farm the sparks around dwayna’s temple after the event is completed and just recently the champion loot bags have been extremely nice as well. From your stand point though i guess this isn’t a guaranteed way of obtaining them due to rng but thats all I can offer for advice right now. I agree we should have some type of exchange rate for lodestones. Otherwise you are stuck paying on the TP.