So apparently i missed all the changes to skillpoints on levelup. Having had about 500 when they converted i thought it had all stayed the same and continued farming dungeons and crafting stuff with them for a profit.
Now while trying to make another ascended armor and after completing a full set of all dungeons and paths i realized that you do not gain them from levelup anymore and that they drop way less. I got whooping 5 shards out of it.
I do realize that this is my own fault for not reading the patchnotes carefully.
So here is my question. Whats the best way to farm them right now?
I would say Embroidered Belt Pouches from Edge of the Mists. I have over 1700 spirit shards now (though all I do is EOTM really, so…), and most of them were from before the skill point > spirit shard update, however you still get them far more easily from these embroidered belt pouches obtained from champs in EOTM than if you were to try get them from monsters in PvE.
You also get 3 from doing your dailies too.
Edit: reworded ‘champ bags’ to ‘embroidered belt pouches’ for correct terminology
Ok thank you for your reply. I’d rather spend hours grinding than wait for dailies. So whats the best way for PvE? Ok i guess eotm is kinda PvE… but still…
Yeah since the skill point to spirit shard conversion update they are definitely harder to get. Though embroidered belt pouches from champs in EOTM I’ve found to be really good.
Killing any mob on a level 80 can drop spirit shards. I’ve seen quite a few that way so I’d say just play the game, champ bags are a good way of doing it too but a lot of more recent events mob kills don’t seem to drop any loot so you’d have to be in the right area.
Daily – 3 Spirit Shards
Writ of Experience – you can turn 20 of these into a Tome of Knowledge (get Writs from PvE dailies)
Tome of Knowledge – Consume on a level 80 for a spirit shard. Also rewarded from WvW “Capture a keep” daily.
Dessa’s Experiment Journal – from fractal vendor = one spirit shard
PvP Reward Tracks – even if you don’t like PvP, go to one of those “open dailies” rooms to get all 4 dailies. They reward Tomes of Knowledge and you can work on a dungeon track or some snazzy skins.
Champ bags/mobs – I wouldn’t focus on these til you’ve done the above dailies.
Chest farm in Silverwastes gives you a lot of them. I finished crafting my legendary a few days ago and already back to almost 200 shards after a few hours per day of chest farming. EOTM is considerably slower since you don’t get a shard from leveling up anymore.
Any kind of champ farm (Silverwastes and Edge of the Mists are popular example)
Tomes of knowledge if you don’t need to level characters. These can be fairly trivially obtained via daily rewards, pvp, and sometimes the random wvw achievement for taking keeps. But you can’t really farm these, these just come as you play.
Dailies. Writs of experience also help make tomes.
All and all, it’s not much effort. The main problem is the waiting, but as you only need 120 to make one ascended set it’s not that bad.
For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards,
for there you have been and there you will long to return.
Alright so silverw(h)astes does give a pretty decent number of shards. Especially the chest farm seems efficient under the new circumstances.
Also to those people who have suggested dailys. Sorry i just can’t go back to waiting for months of getting like 5 shards a day when i used to throw them left and right by the hundreds. I do dailies anyway with or without them giving me shards but while this method might suffice for acquiring them for new players its hardly viable for vets.
