Guild Wars 2

It seems like from quickly glancing at prices and from what drop rates seem to be, if I want anything it’s best to just buy it with gold rather than try to farm it.

For example, I tried to farm some karka shells. In the first 10 minutes of killing karka I didn’t find a single one. I realized I could go do a dungeon in that time and buy about 20 karka shells with the earnings.

If you think about it, it’s pretty hard to find an area in the game where the drop rates justify the time spent compared to just doing a few dungeon dailies.

Well, the Karka shells are actually easy to farm. They drop from the veteran karkas. If you go to the western part of the map, there are commonly groups of people farming them, particularly near the Karka Queen time. Just join in and get a Karka shell with each kill.

As to other items, it can be better to farm gold and buy since the drop rate is random.

While it is far easier and faster to buy the items you want, you have to remember that doing so drives the prices upward. More people buying equals less supply. Granted there are thousands of people at any given time selling a few mats at a time, and just as many buying them (velocity).
It can be beneficial to farm for the particular mats you want. By doing a bit of research on the mob drop rates, and high concentration of mobs that drop said mats, one can save a bunch of money. But it does take longer.
But it’s not impossible. I farmed most of my T6 mats for my legendary, upgraded T5s, and used obsidian shards.

pdavis.8031:

While it is far easier and faster to buy the items you want, you have to remember that doing so drives the prices upward. More people buying equals less supply. Granted there are thousands of people at any given time selling a few mats at a time, and just as many buying them (velocity).
It can be beneficial to farm for the particular mats you want. By doing a bit of research on the mob drop rates, and high concentration of mobs that drop said mats, one can save a bunch of money. But it does take longer.
But it’s not impossible. I farmed most of my T6 mats for my legendary, upgraded T5s, and used obsidian shards.

A LOT longer. The Mob drop rates have always been abysmal. Back in the early days I tried to farm charged lodestones in one of the 2 places you could get them outside of COE…… Dwayna’s temple. Spent 2 days doing that and only got 1 charged core out of it. But that was with 21~100% magic find (which was super high back then because of Traveler’s gear being the only permanent MF, and omnom berry bars, and MF boosters).

But with champ bags today, I can get 2 cores easily out of 20-30 bags.

I’ve found it amusing, but not necessarilly in a good way, that I can more reliably get cores, for example, from champ bags than from actually farming the appropriate mob.

Edit: to be fair, though, other things are pretty straightforward (e.g. vials of blood, karka shells), so I suppose it depends on which material it is.

The TP is definitely the easiest method.

If you don’t know the spots and you don’t have an optimized build for farming, stick to getting gold and buying from the TP.

Obtena.7952:

If you don’t know the spots and you don’t have an optimized build for farming, stick to getting gold and buying from the TP.

Exactly. Or, if you want to farm for specific drops, do some research first (there are farms for every high-value mat in the game, most of them published on Reddit, some documented on personal blogs, a couple on wiki user ages, as well as a few websites dedicated to this sort of thing).

Khristophoros.7194:

It seems like from quickly glancing at prices and from what drop rates seem to be, if I want anything it’s best to just buy it with gold rather than try to farm it.

For example, I tried to farm some karka shells. In the first 10 minutes of killing karka I didn’t find a single one. I realized I could go do a dungeon in that time and buy about 20 karka shells with the earnings.

If you think about it, it’s pretty hard to find an area in the game where the drop rates justify the time spent compared to just doing a few dungeon dailies.

As already mentioned, you farmed the wrong mobs, veteran karkas are guaranteed to drop a karka shell, besides vials of blood and other loot.

Dont get me wrong when i say that your knowledge of the game and game economy is pretty limited but in your case i would suggest to just earn gold with whatever content you like to play and buy karka shells from the tp.

pdavis.8031:

While it is far easier and faster to buy the items you want, you have to remember that doing so drives the prices upward. More people buying equals less supply. Granted there are thousands of people at any given time selling a few mats at a time, and just as many buying them (velocity).
It can be beneficial to farm for the particular mats you want. By doing a bit of research on the mob drop rates, and high concentration of mobs that drop said mats, one can save a bunch of money. But it does take longer.
But it’s not impossible. I farmed most of my T6 mats for my legendary, upgraded T5s, and used obsidian shards.

Since you did that, where would you recommend getting Armored Scales? And also I’m not sure if it’s worth it to promote materials right now because Crystalline Dust has gotten pretty valuable.

Also, I don’t really care what effect on the economy my individual actions have. It would take a very deliberate waste of a tremendous amount of resources for one person to make any measurable difference.

I think the devs already know that that’s why they created the new system of map event rewards. Although it’s not direct mob farming, but rather event farming, the end result is the same, you play content that will help you get the items you want and not the gold to buy them, which is great. During the first BWE players will see it in action.

Depends on how cheap you are, how much time you have on your hands, and the item you’re farming.

Run missions and buy what you need. Farming is too time consuming..unless you got a lot of time on your hands then farm what you need. I farm what i need because that is what my natural gaming instinct wants me to do. Farm what i need. But i also run missions.

“If you think about it, it’s pretty hard to find an area in the game where the drop rates justify the time spent compared to just doing a few dungeon dailies.”

Khristo..your going to need like 300% Magic Find to notice a major change to the drop rate. I have two accounts and my main gets way more T6 then my alt. Make sure you are using the +20% MF Amulet, any type of MF food and drop a guild banner. The 3day buff works wonders for farming mats.

The only time is is truly worth it to farm for drops is when it is for a rare account bound drop. Other than that, because everything in game has a gold value because of the trading post, the most efficient gold farm is the most efficient form of any type, because you can just buy whatever it is you want.
However, doing chest farm or dungeons for hours on end can get extremely boring so changing to farming risen in cursed shore for drops (maybe not even in a Zerg) could feel much more fun and rewarding.

Depends on how you define worth.

Let’s pretend the most profitable things you can do in the game are things you don’t enjoy. You’re always going to want something else.

I enjoy harvesting wood, metal and plants, even though I could buy anything I need off the trading post. I’d have less fun running daily dungeons and the Silverwastes.

I do what I find fun, when I find it fun. It does take longer. But I’m doing something I enjoy, so who cares?

Khristophoros.7194:

pdavis.8031:

While it is far easier and faster to buy the items you want, you have to remember that doing so drives the prices upward. More people buying equals less supply. Granted there are thousands of people at any given time selling a few mats at a time, and just as many buying them (velocity).
It can be beneficial to farm for the particular mats you want. By doing a bit of research on the mob drop rates, and high concentration of mobs that drop said mats, one can save a bunch of money. But it does take longer.
But it’s not impossible. I farmed most of my T6 mats for my legendary, upgraded T5s, and used obsidian shards.

Since you did that, where would you recommend getting Armored Scales? And also I’m not sure if it’s worth it to promote materials right now because Crystalline Dust has gotten pretty valuable.

Also, I don’t really care what effect on the economy my individual actions have. It would take a very deliberate waste of a tremendous amount of resources for one person to make any measurable difference.

For armored scales try skritt in the nw corner of your home bl in wvw or skritt in dry top. Great source of scales.