Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing a few months now and have four characters. In my Wallet I have 106,000 Karma and some change. I’ve checked out Karma Merchants up to level 60 and they really don’t sell items worth having. Does it perhaps get a lot better when you’re at a high level?

I don’t craft because I’ve been warned you can’t make a lot of gold by crafting (I gather and sell the gathers instead) and it seems that Karma Merchants have a lot of items to be used in crafting. Is that the whole purpose of Karma?

The main use of karma for most players at high levels is to buy Obsidian Shards (found at the Balthazar temple vendor in Straits of Devastation in Orr), as they are required for ascended crafting (in smallish quantities) and legendaries (in… pretty dang big quantities). As they are 2100 karma/unit, and you need an estimated 500 obsidian shards per legendary… well. That gets eaten up fast.

It can also be used to buy exotic level 80 armor at other Orr temples, which can be interesting to gear up if you have the karma to spare, and, yes, there are a lot of crafting stuff (mainly for cooking but also various recipes, etc) that cost karma.

106k is nothing. :-P Karma Merchants are really only important for crafting if you’re either a Chef (cooking ingredients) or a completionist who wants all recipes.

There is decent armor to be had at max level, e.g. the Temple armors from the Orrian temples which cost 42k per armor piece, so 252k for the whole suite. Except that Karma-bought armor can’t be salvaged, so there is no easy way to get potentially expensive Runes back out again. A few of the collections introduced with the last feature patch also rely heavily on stuff bought from Karma merchants. Other than that, I personally have no use for it, so I’m sitting on 900k after 8 months of playing.

You can make gold from crafting, but only if you pay attention to the market to find the constantly changing niches that are profitable, which I don’t find appealing at all.

Talk to me again when you have 9.5M karma and nothing to do with it (except make linen, which is boring as kitten).

The reason they’re afraid to introduce good karma sinks into the game is that the failed to do so early on, so lots of players now have huge amounts of karma stocked up, and would now be able to just instantly buy whatever they wanted from the karma sink if the costs were too low… whereas if the costs were massive, then it would be an impossible hurdle for newer players to overcome.

Here’s a related question then: a lot of people refer to the Edge of the Mists as a ‘karma train’, implying that the main reason people play there is to get karma.

Why do they do it? What do they need the karma for?

I also saw a lot of people complain that after it became account bound karma was a lot harder to get (mainly because daily and monthly reward chests gave less of it), but if it has so little use why would they complain?

Karma as a type of reward makes sense in the game lore. A struggling farmer who needs help from any random stranger passing by is unlikely to have much money to give you as a reward. But he would feel grateful and could either give you items (spending your karma at that heart merchant) or tell other people what you did for him so they’ll be more inclined to help you out later (giving you karma to spend at other merchants).

Which also fits with the way most people seem to use it – getting occasional useful items while levelling up and then getting Obsidian shards and level 80 exotics from the temples in Orr where everyone’s saying “Wow, you’re the Pact Commander! I’ve heard about all the great things you’ve been doing.”

It used to also have the distinction of being character specific, unlike gold which could be shared between characters, but they removed that a while ago.

Olvendred.3027:

The reason they’re afraid to introduce good karma sinks into the game is that the failed to do so early on, so lots of players now have huge amounts of karma stocked up, and would now be able to just instantly buy whatever they wanted from the karma sink if the costs were too low… whereas if the costs were massive, then it would be an impossible hurdle for newer players to overcome.

In that case what they need is something like crafting, but which appeals to a different group of people. Something where you buy items for karma that individually don’t cost much, but if you want to do all of the available options, either in one go or gradually over time, you need a lot of them and will end up spending a lot of karma.

There are several uses for karma, but not continued ones. For example:

- You need about 1m karma to make a legendary weapon (which can be replaced for about 7k fractal relics or 500+ laurels, but karma is much easier to get than either one).
- You can get exotic armor with an unique skin in Orr temples for 63k karma a piece (252k for a full set). Worth getting at least once if you like the skins to unlock in wardrobe, and if you have lots of karma it’s a cheap way to gear up characters when hitting 80, but be aware, if you plan on making ascended armor later, temple armor can’t be salvaged so any expensive rune you place on them is lost if you replace the armor later. The temple vendors also sell exotic accessories for the same price.
- At level 80 you can get cultural weapons in each of the capitals, they’re weapon sets with unique skins themed after each race for 63k karma each. They’re rare quality so chances are you’ll later replace them for exotics, but the weapon skin is now unlocked so you can apply it to it. Worth getting if you like the skins. Note, there are cheaper lower level cultural weapons, but they share skins with common world drops, not worth to get IMHO. There are also other cultural weapons you can get themed after the Lionguard (LA), Pirate ones (at the end of the pirate jumping puzzle in LA) and Ebonhawke (in Ebonhawke).
- There are other uses, like getting recipes for crafting (21k for ascended crafting recipe, less than 450 for all the others) and materials in bulk, but usually they’re cheap enough that most people don’t really pay attention to them.

Thing is, most of them are either of limited use (not everyone will get a legendary weapon, for example, or if they do, biggest hurdle is the gold needed not the karma) or just used once (gearing an alt or unlocking a skin), so not enough karma is drained compared to how easy it is to get it, specially in EotM.

Karma has value in the game depending on your point of view, I currently have 9 chars 8 of them being level 80’s, all of the level 80’s are decked out in temple armors bought with karma, 42k per piece burns it up fast roughly 210k karma per toon that’s almost 1.7m karma I spent outfitting them, please keep in mind that way over 90% of the content in GW2 can be completed in this armor and that before Ascended armors arrived it really was IMHO the BIS gear to have, and probably is still the best gear for the average player, again IMHO.

I got the idea a few months ago to outfit my main in ascended armors and a couple ascended weapons, in that process I burnt through over 700k karma and almost 400g because like a lot of players I never let a node go by untapped and sell the mats on the TP, I do horde mats but you never seem to have enough when your crafting ascended stuff so I had to buy some mats to complete my project, was it worth it? probably not, but I had the karma and gold to burn so it wasn’t really a big deal to me.

But….. (there’s always a but! isn’t there?) I now have about 1.5m karma left and feel the need to build it back up to my pre ascended levels (around 2.5m) just in case Anet decides to give it another purpose in the game, so I do frequent EotM and run with the train to gain more karma, it’s also a easy way to level a toon like last night I gained 4-5k karma and my toon I’m leveling gained 3 levels in just a couple hours.

You are correct that none of the karma vendor items are worth using….however, the SKINS are worth obtaining from them. (only buy the cheapest Blue ones if Skin collecting). Obi shards and possibly Temple Armor (note you can’t salvage it) are the only high end items that are worth spending Karma on. There are some Exotic Jewelry and backpieces also at the Orr Temple NPCs, but you can now CRAFT better back pieces (stat wise) and Ascended Jewelry makes an Exotic piece that you cannot salvage a waste of karma.

I think it is mostly for people who want legendary weapon. It take like million karma or something like that to get a legendary weapon.

Here is a youtube video that explains a quick way to turn karma to gold. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lF0u-coEq_0. Other than converting it into gold, the only other real use for it now is legendaries and temple gear as stated above.

I used karma points after completing renown hearts as each of the hearts become karma vendors who will have weapons, armor, salvage kits as well as special upgrades for those things. Even still, I have thousands upon thousands of karma left

Karma is just one of the 30 or so different currencies in this game.

If you are a collector of armor and weapons and want to fill out your wardrobe as much as possible, there are a fair number of karma armor and weapons from heart merchants and there are merchants that sell cultural weapons for karma. It makes for an easy way to get a lot of skins without using gold.

Abeezil.2936:

I’ve been playing a few months now and have four characters. In my Wallet I have 106,000 Karma and some change. I’ve checked out Karma Merchants up to level 60 and they really don’t sell items worth having. Does it perhaps get a lot better when you’re at a high level?

I don’t craft because I’ve been warned you can’t make a lot of gold by crafting (I gather and sell the gathers instead) and it seems that Karma Merchants have a lot of items to be used in crafting. Is that the whole purpose of Karma?

You SHOULD be doing some crafting. I have no idea who told you that. No, you can’t make much money off of it unless you try really hard, but it’s still enjoyable and allows you to create best gear in the game. Not to mention all the bonus experience your character receives. (7-10 levels per crafting discipline)

Thanks, all, for your posts.

I played WoW for more than 6 years and got heartily weary of crafting. It had a few uses: potions were good, food was good, but the others consumed endless time and ingredients and weren’t worth much. The things I could make (even rare ones) I would make for guildies who asked me or put in the guild bank. Occasionally, briefly, there’d be one high level item that sold for a lot, but not often. I’m not saying I won’t eventually give it a shot in this game, but not for a while – maybe when my first one levels up to 80.

I’m having fun currently, enjoying how much friendlier and more cooperative GW2 players are. I’ve got a lot of zones, vistas, points of interest and waypoints to find.

I’ll continue, then, to stock up Karma, check out each Karma merchant I meet for something besides parsley or oregano or the like, and maybe I will find it useful one day.

Abeezil.2936:

Thanks, all, for your posts.

I played WoW for more than 6 years and got heartily weary of crafting. It had a few uses: potions were good, food was good, but the others consumed endless time and ingredients and weren’t worth much. The things I could make (even rare ones) I would make for guildies who asked me or put in the guild bank. Occasionally, briefly, there’d be one high level item that sold for a lot, but not often. I’m not saying I won’t eventually give it a shot in this game, but not for a while – maybe when my first one levels up to 80.

I’m having fun currently, enjoying how much friendlier and more cooperative GW2 players are. I’ve got a lot of zones, vistas, points of interest and waypoints to find.

I’ll continue, then, to stock up Karma, check out each Karma merchant I meet for something besides parsley or oregano or the like, and maybe I will find it useful one day.

Do that, 252 000 karma will get you an exotic level 80 armour set for any class. They look pretty good too, especially the light armour on female characters.

Karma was a currency introduced as an alternative to gold that could not be purchased with real money. Some armours (the temple ones) have an exclusive skin and they can only be purchased with karma.

Same goes with ascended crafting. Each ascended item you craft is bound to your account. A base material for ascended crafting is the obsidian shard that is bought with karma.

TL;DR : karma is here to prevent some high end gear to be purchased with real money.

Crafting here is nothing like in WoW. It has zero profit potential in ‘most’ cases unless you specifically look for items where it’s possible to pull a small one via data aggregators. Weapons you create are not variable – if it’s ascended it’s a 100% success rate of crafting it if you pay the material cost.

If you want the highest stat armor in the game, there is currently no effective alternative to ascended crafting for most stat combinations given how low fractal drop rates are. Legendaries can be bought for real money, but Ascended weapons cannot be bought and are a mark of either luck in drops (which usually require a bit more skill than your standard farm as they only drop from certain encounters) or a full crafting level. Essentially, VodCom’s Tldr.

If you craft end items, crafting is mostly unprofitable (but there are exceptions if you know how to research the TP). However, if you craft components and sell THEM it can be VERY profitable (if you know what components to craft).

Most player that make lots of money crafting WANT everyone to think it’s not profitable….thus the popular belief you can’t make money crafting.

Brother Grimm.5176:

You are correct that none of the karma vendor items are worth using….however, the SKINS are worth obtaining from them. (only buy the cheapest Blue ones if Skin collecting). Obi shards and possibly Temple Armor (note you can’t salvage it) are the only high end items that are worth spending Karma on. There are some Exotic Jewelry and backpieces also at the Orr Temple NPCs, but you can now CRAFT better back pieces (stat wise) and Ascended Jewelry makes an Exotic piece that you cannot salvage a waste of karma.

Exactly what i do. Grab the level 40 (tier 1) karma weapons in groups of 4, that unlocks the skins and leaves you with 4 low level rares to throw in the forge. The result is a low level rare usually about level 47, which will bring a few silver on the trading post.

You can instead do the level 80 weapons, that will at least give you a rare worth salvaging for potential ecto, and I did get an exotic from this process once. But it is far more expensive to do this in general, so stick with the lower level. Don’t forget the weapons vendors in ebonhawke and at the end of the pirate JP in lions arch.

Keep some karma handy in case you want it for something special. Breathing apparatus comes to mind. 100k is not a huge amount, so save what you have until you hit about 500k and make a mini quest to go gather skins, do a few JPs and random events on the way, have fun with it.

Temple Karma armor is 288K for a full set. Keep in mind that currently you cannot get the upgrades OFF this armor so think hard about putting high priced upgrades on it.

Karma is one of those things that seems to have little use… Until you suddenly need a huge amount of it and it’s extremely difficult to farm. Don’t be in too much of a rush to burn through your karma; you never know if you’ll need it down the line.

In my case, for example, I once had almost 7 million Karma stockpiled. After buying 1500 Obsidian Shards for Ascended crafting, Temple armor (for the skins), enough Sun Beads to complete the Hylek Weapon collection, and all the T3 Cultural Weapons (also for the skins), I’m down to almost nothing. I would never have been able to afford all that had I simply wasted my Karma on things like Orrian Jewelry Boxes.

I’m constantly out of karma lol. Aside from fractals, which doesn’t give that much, I don’t rly like any part of the game that awards karma. Now I’m just doing teq every day because I don’t wanna wait 6 months till my next legendary…

The notes on temple armour and upgrades are correct, but I did not notice anyone mentioning the trinkets from temples. As there are not highend upgrades for these, I find them to be very useful, if you are using a stat set available.

As mentioned, karma can be a very useful currency.

All 5 of my lvl 80’s have at least one set of exotic armour purchased using karma. This is even easier to acquire now that the Orr temples are usually open and each temple sells complete sets of a particular armour stat. This was not always the case …

The best PvE event to do for karma is Tequatl.
Each successful kill will net you around 17,000 karma. Do this event 3 times per day (on different toons for the big chest reward) and that is over 50,000 karma per day just from this event alone. Using karma boosters will add more.

The Tripple-Trouble Wurm event gives some decent karma as well, but this event is more difficult to do without an organised group of experienced players.

Brother Grimm.5176:

Temple Karma armor is 288K for a full set. Keep in mind that currently you cannot get the upgrades OFF this armor so think hard about putting high priced upgrades on it.

It’s actually 252 000 karma.* Just wanted to point it out. XD