Guild Wars 2

Another Black Lion Chest key thread got me thinking about making money by farming these keys. The key farming method is well-known (and apparently Anet has no objections):

• You create a new toon and rush through the Personal Story until you get a key at the Level 10 story. Apparently, this can be done anywhere between 20 and 30 minutes per key.

• As I understand it, you get 1 Black Lion Claim Ticket Scrap every 5 or so chests and you need 10 scraps to make 1 Black Lion Claim Ticket. So on average, it’d take you 50 runs to get 1 Ticket. This is subject to RNG, of course.

• 1 Ticket gives you one skin from the current Living Story. You buy the most popular skin and TP it for gold.

This way, if it took you 20 minutes per key, then in order to make 10 gold/hour (competitive with Dungeon running/Champ training), you’d need to sell your skin for 170g. (If it took 30 mins per key, then you’d have to sell for 250g.)

Anyone tried this?

Even with your optimistic estimates it would take, subject to the RNG, 15-20 hours for a single skin. Personally I think it’ll be closer to twice that amount of time and boring as all heck.

I know there was a thread discussing how to farm for keys, as in which story was the easiest.

So that’s what ticket skins are going for? Haven’t bothered to check myself.

Behellagh.1468:

Even with your optimistic estimates it would take, subject to the RNG, 15-20 hours for a single skin. Personally I think it’ll be closer to twice that amount of time and boring as all heck.

I know there was a thread discussing how to farm for keys, as in which story was the easiest.

So that’s what ticket skins are going for? Haven’t bothered to check myself.

It is boring as all heck. I do a key a day and think it is my limit. Others don’t mind doing it endlessly. There are better gold making options, just not better key making options.

Yargesh.4965:

There are better gold making options, just not better key making options.

Pretty much.

I did the human lvl 10 thing for a bit and it is so tedious after awhile and the money you make from it really isn’t worth it.

Behellagh.1468:

Even with your optimistic estimates it would take, subject to the RNG, 15-20 hours for a single skin. Personally I think it’ll be closer to twice that amount of time and boring as all heck.

I know there was a thread discussing how to farm for keys, as in which story was the easiest.

So that’s what ticket skins are going for? Haven’t bothered to check myself.

If you do this A LOT, then over time, the RNG would even itself out and you’d see my numbers

but yeah.. you’re right: this would get REALLY tedious once you’ve finished the interesting part of discovering the fastest way to the Level 10 story.

Just checked…. the Dreamthistle sword skin currently goes for about 100g sell and 92g buy and the pistol skin is at 195g sell and 125g buy. So we’re talking maybe 6-7 gold per hour at 20 mins per key.

You could go get a minimum wage job from McDonalds.

That would net you more gold per hour, probably be more entertaining too.

The amount of time you’d spend getting 5 Tickets is absurd. You’d get a lot more gold by just farming it for that amount of time (dungs, champs, world bosses)

Peetee.9406:

You could go get a minimum wage job from McDonalds.

That would net you more gold per hour, probably be more entertaining too.

A minimum wage job at McDonalds would certainly net you more gold/hour: as of right now, 1 dollar gets you 4 gold.

Nabuko Darayon.9645:

The amount of time you’d spend getting 5 Tickets is absurd. You’d get a lot more gold by just farming it for that amount of time (dungs, champs, world bosses)

At 20 mins per key, it’d take you on average about 17 hours to get one key. But remember that each key converts to a skin that sells for quite a lot (that’s the intention, at least) … so that your gold per hour would be comparable to other forms of farming.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Nabuko Darayon.9645:

The amount of time you’d spend getting 5 Tickets is absurd. You’d get a lot more gold by just farming it for that amount of time (dungs, champs, world bosses)

At 20 mins per key, it’d take you on average about 17 hours to get one key. But remember that each key converts to a skin that sells for quite a lot (that’s the intention, at least) … so that your gold per hour would be comparable to other forms of farming.

It takes between 5 and 7 claim tickets to get a skin, each ticket takes 10 scraps, each key have a 1 in 5 or so chance of a scrap and tiny chance of a ticket.

Yargesh.4965:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Nabuko Darayon.9645:

The amount of time you’d spend getting 5 Tickets is absurd. You’d get a lot more gold by just farming it for that amount of time (dungs, champs, world bosses)

At 20 mins per key, it’d take you on average about 17 hours to get one key. But remember that each key converts to a skin that sells for quite a lot (that’s the intention, at least) … so that your gold per hour would be comparable to other forms of farming.

It takes between 5 and 7 claim tickets to get a skin, each ticket takes 10 scraps, each key have a 1 in 5 or so chance of a scrap and tiny chance of a ticket.

As I understand it, during the current Living Story, skins for that Story sell for 1 Ticket. After that story is over, the price goes up to 5 Tickets.

Yargesh.4965:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Nabuko Darayon.9645:

The amount of time you’d spend getting 5 Tickets is absurd. You’d get a lot more gold by just farming it for that amount of time (dungs, champs, world bosses)

At 20 mins per key, it’d take you on average about 17 hours to get one key. But remember that each key converts to a skin that sells for quite a lot (that’s the intention, at least) … so that your gold per hour would be comparable to other forms of farming.

It takes between 5 and 7 claim tickets to get a skin, each ticket takes 10 scraps, each key have a 1 in 5 or so chance of a scrap and tiny chance of a ticket.

Don’t buy the existing skins, gold/ticket is awful. Newly released skins sell fast and cost 1 ticket each for a limited time. I saved up tickets from doing occasional runs over a month or two and when a new set of skins were released I sold several for like 75g/ticket after fees. I made over 400 gold from something I do when I’m bored.

It’s not the fastest or most efficient way to make gold, but it’s easy, and you can do it alone without worrying that you’ll get kicked for using the wrong gear or something.

It’s not a great way to make money, no.

I farm it, however, because I am stuck with some unsellable fused and old wintersday skins. By getting the tickets and stacking the skins I can make the old unsellable ones sellable so it will double my money (when I finally get seven of those stupid tickets).

tolunart.2095:

Yargesh.4965:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Nabuko Darayon.9645:

The amount of time you’d spend getting 5 Tickets is absurd. You’d get a lot more gold by just farming it for that amount of time (dungs, champs, world bosses)

At 20 mins per key, it’d take you on average about 17 hours to get one key. But remember that each key converts to a skin that sells for quite a lot (that’s the intention, at least) … so that your gold per hour would be comparable to other forms of farming.

It takes between 5 and 7 claim tickets to get a skin, each ticket takes 10 scraps, each key have a 1 in 5 or so chance of a scrap and tiny chance of a ticket.

Don’t buy the existing skins, gold/ticket is awful. Newly released skins sell fast and cost 1 ticket each for a limited time. I saved up tickets from doing occasional runs over a month or two and when a new set of skins were released I sold several for like 75g/ticket after fees. I made over 400 gold from something I do when I’m bored.

It’s not the fastest or most efficient way to make gold, but it’s easy, and you can do it alone without worrying that you’ll get kicked for using the wrong gear or something.

I understand this. I have some tickets now, but since I started late I did not get some of the dream skins I think look cool. It is mostly for me just something to do, not really interested in the cash since I got the golden title a while ago, I am not chasing a legendary and just seeing higher numbers in the gold field does nothing for me.

You can indeed make cash from farming keys not only from the tickets but also from the minis that drop. But like others said it’s boring as heck and it is all RNG based of course. So you can get good and bad days.

Myself, I can only do maybe 1-2 runs a day before I’m bored and I only do this when I am totally bored and really need a new BLTC salvage kit. I look at farming keys as the same as buying one of those scratch and win tickets. You know you will more than likely fail and get crap but there is a chance at something nice and it is a quick thrill in the end….

PS, to any who have never tried to farm keys and thought they might try at some time, you might want to start as soon as possible. I say this because I have seen talk from Anet about them adding in a better intro to the game for new players that will walk them through certain learning phases. I suspect this will be mandatory (and probably be for every char you make) and will probably kill key farming as a side effect because it will probably add a lot more time to the whole process.

It took me 70+ keys to make myself a whole ticket from the scraps (only got 1 whole ‘golden’ ticket, as such, in my entire life just when I had given up hope of ever receiving one), and just yesterday I opened 4 chests and got absolute junk XD #Iwantthe2hoursofmylifeback

Zaoda.1653:

It took me 70+ keys to make myself a whole ticket from the scraps (only got 1 whole ‘golden’ ticket, as such, in my entire life just when I had given up hope of ever receiving one), and just yesterday I opened 4 chests and got absolute junk XD #Iwantthe2hoursofmylifeback

Could be worse, you could have bought all those keys lol…..

so basically just an average of 10g an hour ?

you can make more that that by farming mats….

azizul.8469:

so basically just an average of 10g an hour ?

you can make more that that by farming mats….

It’s all luck. You could do 1 run and get super lucky and get a full ticket (happened to me before) then as soon as new wep skins come out you can use that 1 ticket to buy whatever weapon sells for the most and bang an easy 60+ gold.

Another thing, farming keys gives other nice things that help out. BLTC salvage kits helps you to get ectos, if you are in a small or personal guild you can get a lot of guild influence items from these runs. I am in only a 2 person guild and thanks to all my runs and doing the personal story on 8 chars I have a full guild bank all unlocked. This all helps with more storage of course. So it’s not ALL about making cash.