Guild Wars 2

I just started looking at what I need for Ascended armor. First of all, I don’t understand why the highest level, best gear in the game requires level 30 mats, but whatever. I need 500 bolts of wool, 250 bolts of cotton, and 500 bolts of linen to complete the entire armor set, and I have very little cloth saved up.

I’m a fairly new player, but I checked the TP anyway. To get the amount of wool I need would cost 30g, whether I buy it as scraps or bolts. While I could afford that, there’s no way I could also afford the cotton and linen I need, so there’s not much point burning a large chunk of my gold on just one of the mats needed.

Is there a good way to farm cloth? I spent about an hour killing pirates in Gendarran Fields, and ended with 2 wool scraps from a bag, and 0 cloth salvage items or light armor pieces. That’s not really an acceptable farm rate considering the amount of cloth needed. For all the cloth, if I farmed 2 hours a day at that rate, it would take me almost 2 years to get the cloth I need (total wool, cotton, and linen, assuming the other 2 are similar drop rates).

Am I missing something?

As Galindal has pointed out, the best way to “farm” cloth at the moment is to find a karma vendor that sells gloves or boots at the low end of the level range that cloth drops at, buy as many of said item that you can hold, go the Mystic Forge in LA, and use it to turn the unsalvageable karma gear into boots/gloves that you can salvage for cloth. This means you don’t really farm cloth; you farm karma to buy the karma gear you need to start the process.

Bram Dawnrazer is who I normally go to for linen, who is a little cheaper than Tunnira (21 karma might not seem like much of a savings, but for all the linen you need for a full set, it adds up) For wool, I go to Gon Rageshot for his gloves. Haven’t needed cotton yet though, but if I ever did, I’d probably go to Herder_Lyot for her shoes.

Also, note that of the many possible things you can get from the mystic forge, it will include gear that is normally crafted as well as higher level karma gear. Crafted gear will always salvage to the mats used to make it, even if it’s a higher level than the mats normally salvage from (so some of the gloves or boots you get from the MF will give you mats a tier lower than what you were hoping for, unless you’re using karma gear that’s over 20 for wool, 35 for cotton, and 50 for linen) and even if it comes from the MF, karma gear is still unsalvageable; you can either toss it out or save it to throw into the MF the next time around.

Not very much, it’s difficult to get wool/cotton/linen, and the TP prices reflect that.

One of the fastest way to get linen (or money by selling it if you don’t need it) it’s this: go to Lionscout Tunnira ( http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lionscout_Tunnira ) in Bloodtide Coast, just outside the portal from LA; buy from her the Cloth Footguards (in multiples of 4), then throw them in the mystic toilet, you’ll get back cloth items that you can salvage for linen (and sometimes cotton, albeit it’s very rare). This method is really fast as to get linen, the only “downside” is that you need to spend karma to buy the footguards from the NPC, so you’ll need to spend quite some karma on it.

When I’m in dire need of a material, I make a character of roughly the level of the mats I need, for instance, wool, a level 25 – 35 character would do and then I go blitz the crap out of every Jumping puzzle I can reach and survive with said leveled character.

And if it helps, I tend to get more cloth gears when playing medium armor characters, but that could just be my horri-bad luck. xD

Cloth (and leather) are much harder to farm directly, as you’ve discovered. Your best bet is to buy items that salvage into cloth, such as light armor, or items that can drop cloth, such as loot bags.

As to why Ascended armor needs lower level mats, it was actually a clever way to ensure that low level mats would always be in a demand. Otherwise, you’d end up with a situation where as players all levelled characters to 80, nobody would need jute or wool or cotton etc. anymore, and you’d just get massive stockpiles of these materials on the Trading Post that no one wanted.

In my experience, grawl have a relatively good chance to drop cloth items. You could consider finding a group of grawl in an area of a suitable level for the type of cloth you need, and farming them.

Bags are the best way to acquire low level cloth scraps with your level 80 character.

Go to a level-appropriate area and kill non-creature enemies (i.e. “humanoids”). Nearly every type of non-creature enemy has a bag of some type in their drop table and most bags have high rates of cloth and leather.

Just to add some more data to comments already given:

The OP mentions that ‘To get the amount of wool I need would cost 30g, whether I buy it as scraps or bolts’. Looking at market prices this corresponds (roughly) to 1,000 Scraps of Wool if you just buy it directly without buy orders.

If you acquire 1,000 Small Ritual Bags on buy order this will cost you 16.5g and you will have an expectation of receiving 650 Scraps of Wool. You will also get other items that you can either keep or sell to recoup some of your money. If you’re poor and can’t buy all you need off the TP, then this is the bag you should farm. The chance of getting any amount of Wool when you open the bag is 34.5%, compared to the Grawl bag which is second best at 19.5% (based on my own research, others may have slightly different values).

You want to farm for BAGS that drop these materials.

Thanks so much for the responses, I really appreciate it.

The idea for buying the gear with karma was great, I marked Foefaller’s post as the answer just because I appreciated the specific vendor links.

I’ve also expanded on the idea a bit and started using dungeon tokens to buy cloth rares to salvage as well. It means I won’t unlock all the skins as quickly, but most of the Guardian dungeon gear doesn’t look that great anyway. :p

I knew about the bags, but didn’t have much luck with them while farming before. My 2 scraps was total, and I’m pretty sure they came out of one of the bags I got while farming pirates. I didn’t think about buying the bags off the TP, though. That’s an idea I’ll consider.

Edit: OH! And the jumping puzzle idea was great, too. Thank you, Angel.

Rarch.6059:

I didn’t think about buying the bags off the TP, though. That’s an idea I’ll consider.

At the volume you’re discussing, you’ll really be better off trying to buy the bags. Farming them directly is best saved for situations where you only need a couple dozen scraps to finish something off.

Salvaging armor items might also be more worthwhile for you if you’re looking to build your Magic Find at the same time.

The ulgoth event chain(doesn’t matter if it will spawn ulgoth or not) is very nice for cotton. It is probably nicer if ulgoth is not scheduled to spawn since you get the other event that spawns a lot more centaurs for a lot more supply bags. If enough people are around they can drop a scaled up version of the bags that can give linen.

The Incendio Temple meta-event chain in Diessa Plateau is also great for Wool. Lots and lots of Flame Legion to kill, and they drop both Small Ritual Bags (which drop Wool) as well as Worn Garments (which salvage into Wool).

One last suggestion:

It was announced yesterday that the feature patch in September will change the loot tables from enemeis to increase the chance that they will drop equipment that can be used by your character.

So if you want to increase the chance of getting cloth drops, you should probably be playing a necromancer, mesmer or elementalist after the patch.
(Even if you are level 80, there is still a chance the level range of the item drops will be in the range of the zone where you are playing.)

That still wouldn’t be as good as the bags.

Ascended crafting is a big time sink and money sink and if you are not prepared to invest heavily then don’t bother. You really want to be able to go to the trading post, buy 250 of something, probably 250 of everything, and get on with things. If you’re always starting and stopping to collect materials or return to the TP then you’ll find all your time slipping away in micromanagement.