Guild Wars 2

Hey there!

I find it a bit ridiculous that the collection for the ascended backpiece of the “Relic of Abaddon” takes 1.5 million karma (315k karma per backpiece, times five).

I am not one of those players that has been playing loyally for 4 years and has racked up millions and millions of karma. In fact, most of the time I end up spending almost all my karma on wintersday bags.

I went and got myself 2 of the relics, but now I have to find a way to still get 900k karma… And the game doesn’t really have any good means of getting lots of karma, since it’s not really a currency that’s used often (though it does see a rise in popularity nowadays) nor does it give a really good gold conversion option.

Sure, Siren’s Landing has the Karmic Retribution like Ember Bay does, but it hardly has any good mob density. You’d still rather farm in Ember Bay because of this. Yeah, you can do Tequatl once a day for 15k.. But that won’t get me anywhere near 900k soon.

Is farming Ember Bay non-stop really the only thing for me to do? Should the developers look into karma again and consider it’s usefulness, popularity and also ways of gaining it in large quantities (the risks of it versus the rewards and evaluating karma costs of existing items in merchants)? It feels a bit wonky as it is right now.

This was put into the game to appease veterans who have been whining about having nothing to spend karma on for years, and therefore have accumulated millions of it. Its honestly not that much karma for someone who has been actively playing for 5 years and has nothing else to spend karma on.

Still though, LWS3 was extremely heavy on how much karma it costs to buy all the exclusive stuff, and I hope that trend doesn’t continue with expac 2 and LWS4.

If the karma cost is too low, then those so-called loyally-playing folks would just drop karma and it would be over. No pain and they wouldn’t much value what they got.

If it’s too high, folks like you can’t afford it anytime soon. And have to choose between existing uses for karma and this.

Seems to me that 315k is a reasonable balance, especially since each of these are infused backpacks.

Here are some cost comparisons that might interest you:

• Other backpacks cost 90-130 gold; infusing runs another 80g in ecto, for a total around 200 gold.
• Veterans can monetize karma at a rate of about 10-20 silver per 1000 karma, so 315k is worth less than 50 gold.
• A full exotic armor set costs around 420k karma, as does a full set of exotic trinkets + back.

So 315k is probably a bargain for each ascended/infused back, even if it feels to you that you’ll never have enough karma to afford it.

You can use Karma Boosters and Candy Canes to help boost Karma gain, as well.

Good luck.

OriOri.8724:

This was put into the game to appease veterans who have been whining about having nothing to spend karma on for years, and therefore have accumulated millions of it. Its honestly not that much karma for someone who has been actively playing for 5 years and has nothing else to spend karma on.

Still though, LWS3 was extremely heavy on how much karma it costs to buy all the exclusive stuff, and I hope that trend doesn’t continue with expac 2 and LWS4.

It’s a lot for someone who has been playing for 5 years but spent all their karma at Wintersday.

I’m in a similar situation – between Wintersday and making a legendary not long ago I was down to barely any karma (well, less than 50,000 but compared to the 1mil minimum I used to have that’s a big drop) and found myself needing several hundred thousand for all the LS3 mini pets.

The best solution I’ve found is doing the LS3 dailies. Each one gives about 1,500 karma, and that’s on top of what you get for events, killing enemies with the bonus etc. Of course there’s only a finite number of dailies so you can’t grind it all out in a day but it’s quicker than anything else I’ve tried.

P.S. Am I the only one who keeps accidentally writing karka? Trying to accumulate karka is a whole other problem.

Danikat.8537:

It’s a lot for someone who has been playing for 5 years but spent all their karma at Wintersday.

I find Wintersday is the best time to make karma. IIRC you can make several thousand from delivering gifts to orphans (very quick once you know where they are and it gives a karma booster), and by doing the bell choir ensemble.

Of course, that doesn’t help the OP right now…

I do all my Karma generation in Ember Bay (used to use Bitterfrost Frontier since you could also get berries that convert into UM, but it seems they owe me a refund on my Karmic Retribution there after the heavy nerfs to the drop rate they made) or stockpiling it during Wintersday.

Tommo Chocolate.5870:

Danikat.8537:

It’s a lot for someone who has been playing for 5 years but spent all their karma at Wintersday.

I find Wintersday is the best time to make karma. IIRC you can make several thousand from delivering gifts to orphans (very quick once you know where they are and it gives a karma booster), and by doing the bell choir ensemble.

Of course, that doesn’t help the OP right now…

You can get a lot of karma during Wintersday. But every year I still manage to use up all I’ve got saved and all I can farm and end up with as close to nothing as you can get.

I did think about suggesting that, but with Wintersday 5 months away I wasn’t sure how it’d go over. I’ve considered it for my mini pet collecting, because I’m fine to wait – it’s very much a long-term goal and I have others to get in the meantime. But if the OP wants the backpack for a build or just wants to get it over and done with that wait could be very frustrating. (And of course there’s no guarantee they won’t change Wintersday again.)

Used all my karma over the years with the pact supply agents buying Pact Scouts Mapping Material to make gold. Going to be a while for the backpack, more like not going to happen for me.

There’s ways to make karma. I hear doing fractals is good for karma. Tequatl is good for about 15k karma the first time a day you do it, and That Shaman has a 7 minute Season 3 10k karma run

Just remember that you can complete the hearts in LWS3 maps daily for more karma.

OriOri.8724:

Just remember that you can complete the hearts in LWS3 maps daily for more karma.

It’s less than 700 karma per heart, so remember before accepting the reward to boost your toon with Wintersday food (karma 10%), candy cane (another 10%), guild booster (10%), etc. It’s pretty easy to turn that into ~1100; with more investment, you can double the base gain.

Full list

The 5 hearts in the new zone can be done in a few minutes each, so let’s call it 5000 karma in 30 minutes. The rate you can complete hearts in other zones is more variable though.

Getting any tier of karmic retribution and just murdering stuff would give a lot mroe than doing the hearts but since killing near the hearts would also complete them there is no harm in doing both

I think by far the easiest way is to play WvW or Edge of the Mists. There are usually boost banners available too. Play for a few hours, you’ll soon rack it up!

Just a flesh wound.3589:

There’s ways to make karma. I hear doing fractals is good for karma. Tequatl is good for about 15k karma the first time a day you do it, and That Shaman has a 7 minute Season 3 10k karma run

Also, the Living World Season 3 zones offer dailies worth 1500 karma each. The first 4 zones offer some very quick dailies. Magic gathering takes about 20 seconds + zone change time in all 4 of them (6000 total karma) and winterberry gathering is 5 total, and you get 1-3 per bush. Etc. If I’m farming karma, I run about 8 of those, selected for being very quick (less than 15 minutes total). That’s 12000 per day.

Wesuteru.9132:

Hey there!

I find it a bit ridiculous that the collection for the ascended backpiece of the “Relic of Abaddon” takes 1.5 million karma (315k karma per backpiece, times five).

<snip>

Unless there is something about the appearance that’s desired, there are several other ascended backpacks with the same stats that are considerably cheaper. Specifically 3 vendors in the first 4 Living World 3 zones offer them for unbound magic and whatever the zone token is (petrified wood, blood ruby, etc). If you use magic tools bought in the zones you can speed up your unbound magic gathering, and if you use the “run the quick dailies” in those zones that I mentioned in a post above, you can earn enough karma to buy the magic tools even if you start with zero karma in the bank.

I’ve used this method to collect 12 characters worth of 5 ascended trinkets + 1 ascended backpack each, so getting a few backpacks should take you a week of about 2 hours a day, and that’s solo.

My impression here is that people made choices. You spent Karma on something and now you lack it for new shinies. The same can be said about other currencies. Someone might have spent Ley Line Crystals to purchase weapons, then a new legendary weapon shows up that requires lots of those crystals for Gifts. I spent 600 Crystalline Ore for Leadership Runes and rarely play my Chronomancer. I then decided to craft HOPE and had only 20 Crystalline Ore in my storage. HOPE requires 250.

I made choices and they turned out to not be the best ones for wishes that I had later on. At the time I made the choices, they were good options. For HOPE, I had the options to either buy Obsidian Shards with Karma or Unbound Magic. I had a big surplus of both, and I decided to use Karma. It’s quite possible that I will lack Karma when the expansion comes and they add a merchant who offers something desirable for Karma. Then I’ll sit on my UM and regret my decision. However, it was my decision, and there is always uncertainty about the future.

Right now, I have just enough Karma to buy those 5 backpacks and get the collection (only have 100 pearls though). Buuuut…there might be something I want when the expansion hits. Do I buy or not?

The price is fine, who needs 6 ascended backpacks anyway. If you really go for it, 1.5mio Karma doesn’t sound much. I probably get a million Karma per month. I play for 6 months and bought temple armor and lots of obsidian shards, I think I got 5 to 6mio in my playtime, and have 1.5mio left now.