Guild Wars 2

The loot sucks.

‘Kay? ’Kay. I don’t think spending 4s to map travel then spending the next twenty minutes killing a dragon only to break even on the port cost and maybe a few pennies more. Very, very rarely, you get a yellow you can sell for 23s, and exotics, well, I’ve never gotten one off of Jormag myself.

So the loot sucks, and that’s out of the way.

378 karma though, really?

I’m going to go ahead and say that I don’t know of any special ways of farming karma beyond doing WvW. I did not know about Plinx until way after it got nerfed, and I suspect even if I found some similarly exploitative method of acquiring karma it would follow suit. Plus, I do not think it’s ultimately fun to just chase whichever obscure method of getting ahead is currently the most viable.

So is the disparity between WvW and regular events intended? And if so, is there a reason why event rewards all seem to give you the same (rather pathetic) rewards regardless of time and effort invested in them?

Right now, it takes 252k karma to buy a set of gear. At a rate of 378 karma per event, that’s 666~ dragon runs. I say dragon runs because everyone does them, so it’s the most likely event to get a full group out of, but even if you supplement these runs by walking around looking for other lesser events, that’s still going to be at the very least

six hundred and sixty six

events.

I’ve realized this is a prevalent issue throughout Guild Wars 2. The game is worth buying because there is a lot of content, but unfortunately the tiresome nature of the grind (as a result of really, really terrible rewards overall) drains the motivation for playing it.

I’ve picked up and abandoned this game on and off since launch. I pick it back up when my friends discover it for the first time and lose interest when I see myself making virtually no progress towards getting any kind of interesting item. I can’t make money and I can’t make karma. Everything I do feels like picking up trash and selling it for chump change.

Have you considered the possibility that in your zeal to create very long grinds to keep people in your game you might be driving them away instead?

Are you ONLY doing dragon events? There are so many event chains you can do where the karma piles up fast. Cursed Shore seems to be everyone’s favorite, but there are big chains in Hirathi Hinterlands (NE corner of the zone, chest there as well), Malchor’s Leap, Caledon Forest, and several other zones. Wiki has a list of event chains for each zone as well, and I’ve found these lists to be quite handy when looking for something different to do. If you’re not in a guild, I’d suggest joining one, as many guilds, including my own, keep up a “15% karma boost for events” upgrade, and 5% karma banners that help boost earned karma.

Are you making sure you do your dailies? I’d suggest saving your daily jugs until you get lucky from a Black Lion chest and get a 50% karma booster, then do your jugs all at once with either or both boosters (or buy a karma booster with gems). If you’re NOT doing your dailies, there’s 4500 karma a day right there you’re missing (and 5 silver, and maybe other stuff, depending on the day and your level, like armor repair cannisters). My guild makes sure we have karma banners ready to go every Sunday night for the guildies to hit before using the karma jugs received from doing dailies.

As for loot, are you using magic find armor, jewelry, and consumables? If not, you may want to craft a set for those occasions when you’re dragon hunting. IMHO and personal experience, it does make a difference. With no magic find (or low magic find %), I seem to get blues and greens from Jormag, Tequatl, and the Shatterer. When I put on my MF armor, weapons, jewelry, and consumables, I seem to get more rare and exotics not only from the dragon’s chests, but from random drops in PvE, WvW, and personal story lines as well. It helps to have your crafting up to 400 in armorer, weaponsmith, and/or jeweler, but you can still craft magic find stuff at lower crafting levels. If you don’t, someone in your guild (again, join one if your not already in one) would be happy to craft for you if you can send them the mats. My guildies and I do it for each other all the time. “Hey, I hit 40/60/80 and need new armor/weapons/jewelry. Can I send you some materials so you can make something for me?” Sure thing- that’s why we’re guildies!

Regarding the cost of zoning, an easy way to avoid spending so much is to go to the PvP lobby or WvW from where ever you are, then take the Asura gate to LA, then the LA Asura gate to the city closest to your destination, run to the edge of the city closest to your destination (or zone free of cost then run to the edge), and then zone to your intended waypoint. Using this method, I’ve yet to spend more than 2 silver crossing the entire continent (southern Cursed Shore to Jormag, for example, 1s 94c). One of my guildies was complaining of the 4-6 silver cost of zoning to a waypoint, until I told him about this method of travel. Sure, it takes a few extra seconds (maybe an extra minute and a half if you load slow), but the savings is surely worth the extra travel time.

Hope that helps!

My problem with karma is that I have almost 250k and there is nothing good to spend it on. Ooohhh I can buy a weapon/armor that looks different but has the same stats, big deal. It’s easy to get that much if you just wander around doing de’s all the time.

I agree though, dragon loot needs to be fixed, it’s mostly crap…I killed all three in a row last night and got almost all blues and no rares at all. Never seen an exotic from one and I’ve killed them over 100 times altogether. And Sinbold.8723, mf doesn’t work on chests, so loading up on mf gear/food for dragons only hurts you. It’s nice for killing adds but I never really get anything good from them either.

“Magic find doesn’t work on chests.” Correct, but don’t confuse Claw of Jormag’s Frozen Chest (or any chest that spawns at the end of a mega-event) with chests that are hidden in PvE zones or chests at the end of jumping puzzles. Isaiah Cartwright said somewhere in a forum post on magic find (I just spent the last 30 minutes trying to find the post using the search function-maybe it was on the wiki?) that (quoting from memory) “Magic find is applied when you kill a monster, not when you open the chest. So putting your MF armor on after killing a monster and then opening the chest will not help.” Isaiah specifically mentioned opening a chest at the end of a mega-event. I’ll keep looking and post a link when I find it.

Found the post link at the bottom of the page on Magic Find on the wiki:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Magic_find
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Magic-Find-Chests

“They only work on creature kills, chests however have a better table then normal kills. We wanted to avoid the game play of killing a boss and then having to equip your whole Magic Find set before opening the chest.
Also magic find is calculated from when the creature is killed so it’s also not viable to use your normal gear set kill a boss then switch to magic find.” -Isaiah Cartwright.

My memory isn’t what it used to be when I was younger, but I got the gist of it, I believe. But the important thing in his quote is, “…before opening the chest.”

So rizzo.1079, try loading up on mf armor/gear/jewelry/consumables next time you do one of the dragon events and see if it makes a difference in your event chest loot. I’ll wager you’ll notice a difference.

Sinbold.8723:

Found the post link at the bottom of the page on Magic Find on the wiki:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Magic_find
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Magic-Find-Chests

“They only work on creature kills, chests however have a better table then normal kills. We wanted to avoid the game play of killing a boss and then having to equip your whole Magic Find set before opening the chest.
Also magic find is calculated from when the creature is killed so it’s also not viable to use your normal gear set kill a boss then switch to magic find.” -Isaiah Cartwright.

My memory isn’t what it used to be when I was younger, but I got the gist of it, I believe. But the important thing in his quote is, “…before opening the chest.”

I’m trying and trying to see where you can twist his words to make it seem like mf works on chests, but I can’t. He’s saying that mf works on mobs only and they designed it that way specifically so you DON’T put on mf gear ‘before opening the chest’. You don’t loot Teq’s body, you loot the chest that drops, therefore mf doesn’t apply.

Sinbold.8723:

So rizzo.1079, try loading up on mf armor/gear/jewelry/consumables next time you do one of the dragon events and see if it makes a difference in your event chest loot. I’ll wager you’ll notice a difference.

I have, and while anecdote /= data, I did not get better items from the dragon chests when using mf gear/food.

Sinbold.8723:

So rizzo.1079, try loading up on mf armor/gear/jewelry/consumables next time you do one of the dragon events and see if it makes a difference in your event chest loot. I’ll wager you’ll notice a difference.

You’d lose that bet. MF has no effect on chests, they have said this numerous times, you misinterpreted what he said. He was referring to people killing a boss, then equipping magic find gear then looting it. IE, all the champion bosses. The MF must be equipped prior to engaging the mob to have any effect, this does not apply to dragon events.