Guild Wars 2

Can someone explain the difference and advantage of using the more expensive gathering tools?

In my experience the, mine, chop and gather nodes relate to the tools used and are dependent on area level.

In the starter area, use the cheapest tool and get the stuff you are going for. In the next level area, if you use the same tools you will get unusable items – so you need the next level tool.

I am not sure if you get a better ‘drop’ rate (more goods per node) if you use higher level tools on lower level nodes though!

You do get rarer drops with higher level tools. I’ve found it most useful with harvesting for cooking, because herb patches and such can drop a number of things, and I’d much rather have sesame seeds than parsley. I think it also helps with getting gems out of mining nodes and hidden stashes out of trees, but I haven’t really been paying that much attention.

OK…..but the steel tools don’t last any longer…just give better drops or drops in highter level areas?

Copper tools allow you to gather T1 materials. Copper ore (universal); Aspen wood (T1 wood has different names in different zones); T1 food (hover over the sickle, it’ll tell you what you can harvest). If you rty to harvest a higher tier, you’ll get “Ruined…” whatever.

Iron tools mean you can gather Gummo / Snow Cherry / whatever wood, better food, iron & silver ore. Steel is T3. Because T3 iron is steel (i.e. Iron + bought coal) you might think there’s no difference, but Gold is T3 for a jeweller, where silver is T2. Wood is Tukawa & others; again, hover over the sickle & it will tell you what it will harvest.

Basically, if you’re getting “Ruined…”, your gathering tool is too low. Once you get to Steel, they’re cheap enough that you won’t care if you you use them to gather T1 / T2 resources. Beyond that, you might start getting selective about what you choose to gather. The main bar on crafting, though, is not ordinary resources, but Fine – Totems, Venom Sacks, Scales, etc…

Pan – not that I’ve noticed. Obviously, you can’t get drops out of higher level nodes with lower level tools, because you just get “Ruined”! But I have harvested lower level nodes with higher level tools, and I can’t say that I’ve noticed any better drops resulting.

If you hover your cursor (mouse pointer) over the tool it tells you what it is for…

Tooltips are your friends.

Raedwulf.3712:

Pan – not that I’ve noticed. Obviously, you can’t get drops out of higher level nodes with lower level tools, because you just get “Ruined”! But I have harvested lower level nodes with higher level tools, and I can’t say that I’ve noticed any better drops resulting.

I decided to head back to the Asura starting area with my mithril tools on and do an unscientific test. I’m getting two gems out of most copper nodes which I’ve never seen with copper tools. I think the quality of the tool does impact what you get out of the node. Either that or it’s based on your level (I’m 70). Maybe I’ll buy some copper tools and do a proper test.

Please do, Pandemoniac

I’m with Pan on this one. I haven’t done any testing, but I’m mainly using mith tools when I’m not in ore and I get more ore/gems etc than I ever did using level appropriate tools.

I’ve never seen any benefit from using a higher tier tool to harvest a lower tier material. I’ve also heard previously that it has no positive effect and going with Jerich’s crafting guide (pretty much THE definitive crafting guide for GW2), it also says there is no benefit.

But the fact is that there is no official source that I’ve been able to find that actually proves this, just a ton of speculation. But again, from my personal experience (and I’ve done a ton of gathering with higher tier tools because I’m too lazy to switch), I haven’t seen a tangible reason to do it.

It could also be Pandemoniac that you have a much higher magic find % now, compared to probably zero for anyone lower then level 30. The magic find alone, can greatly increase the amount of gems obtained from logs and the like. I use a orichalium axe for example, on the lower tiered mithril (don’t bother switching), and with magic find gear/food I notice a higher % in jewels attained, vs without, yet it seems random at best.

I haven’t put any magic find on my gear – we probably did have a bonus from WvW though. So I did a fairly thorough run with copper tools in the Asura starting lands earlier. I’ll do a run through with orichalium tools next and try to get the same amount of samples in the same area. I don’t think we had a bonus from WvW, but I didn’t check (grumble), and I’ve gained a level in the meantime. If the results aren’t dramatically different, I say we chalk it up to wishful thinking on my part.

Here’s a quick summary

20 copper mines (1 rich, so let’s say 24 harvests) – 6 gems
20 trees – 30 cinnamon (between 3-5 per harvest). I got a fourth log 3 times
19 crops – 1 dye, 1 vanilla harvest of 5, 1 thyme – the rest normal 1s and 2s blueberries, carrots, onions, mushrooms, and garlic.

After running a bit with the higher level tools, I’m fairly certain what I was seeing was the gathering bonus from WvW and not a difference in tools. Buy the cheapest tools for the tier you’re in.