Guild Wars 2

So I’m thinking of picking up a Commander Tag since I’ve mostly played WvW from launch to now. I’m short with cash, but I’m willing to sell all of my T6 Mats to hopefully get me there. I have now realized that a legendary is ffaaaaaaaaarrrrrrr away from reach (I don’t do dungeons).

Once I do get my tag, I’m thinking of ways to keep me from being destitute. I know there are folks out there that donate stuff to their commanders, but I want to make sure that I don’t rely on those for my sieges and upgrades.

One idea I had was trading in my laurels for T6 Crafting Bags, which costs 1 laurel and give about 3-4 T6 materials. It might average me daily around 40s to 80s. But I’m not sure if this is a smart way of converting laurels into cash. Another idea is using Mystic Binding Agents to convert cores into lodestones. The Elonian wines are expensive, and it sometimes cuts into profits.

Anyway, I’m reaching out to commanders for advice on how to stay afloat. I know there are good days when the cash rolls-in with the zerg, but there are times when you become the cash cow for your opponents.

Commander tag is nothing compared to the amount of money you’ll have to spend on siege. In lower tier servers people don’t upgrade towers since they think it’s a commander’s job aswel.

Unless you’re in an organized guild which will aid you in the financial aspect of being a commander, I’d think twice about getting that tag.

Once you become a commander and are regularly knocking on keep doors you’ll get a kittenton of karma and badges.

Buy Orrian Jewelry boxes with karma. The income is aprox 1s50c per 1k karma.

Buy seige with the badges.

Now go out there and beat the ever-living snot outta the bad guys.

I take care of one structure on a map personally.. and there’s multiple people like that on our server who like to “own” something and take care of it, you could ask for small donations in /t to upgrade keeps etc, usually a WvW guild covers the fees with ease..

Most of my siege I buy with badges, except golems because they’re ridicously overpriced.

I once was a rich boy, after I purchased commander, I average 1-2 gold on me at the time, sometimes I may get lucky and have 10 gold just from the quick wvw break to run a dungeon every once and awhile

As an active commander I’m glad to say I regularly receive siege and gold donations from people to help finance. You can always say any donation is welcome, a couple of people are bound to give you some if you do your job well

Commanding isn’t easy. If people are following you, ask for donations every hour and a half or so. You will be amazed how much siege you get. Recruit for your guild and make superior siege donations a requirement for being in your guild.

If you find you like commanding, growing a community that will auto-join you when you are running makes life a lot easier. 10 people that will stay on your icon no matter what makes the zerg a lot easier to maneuver. Use voice chat and openly invite people to join you. It is so much more fun commanding through speech than through having to type everything.

Alternating between sieging towers/keeps and karma training also helps to instill loyalty. I’ve seen so many commanders fail by continually walking their followers into a losing proposition over and over again.

Thanks for the responses everyone.

@Zeal.1376 > I’ve been on the fence in regards to getting a tag. I had the cash for it, but spent it on some ectos to get my Mystic Clovers. Now I have 80 of those clovers, but I don’t have a precursor… Ugh. For now, I’ll just hold on to them until something is added that would make precursors reasonably attainable.

And I’m prepared to splurge. WvW is fun, and I’ve dabbled a bit in leading a small group to harass camps. I think the fun part of WvW is organizing the servers and guilds and the people in the map. It’s frustrating at times, but if it works, it’s rewarding.

@Herr der Friedhoefe.2490 > Yeah, I’m sitting with about 300k karma and 41 jugs of karma. I’ll do the Orrian Jewelry box, but puppies is that a pain on the left-mouse button.

@Sceinna.3561 > I have about 500 now, but I haven’t traded it in for Gift of Battle. I think I’m gonna hold the 500 (just in case), and anything after that, I will trade in for siege.

The good news is that now loot is giving plenty of badges to buy seige, bad news, sometimes is not enough and you will have to dig into your savings. I have a personal rule to avoid commanding unless I have enough seige to last for at least 4 hours.

Finances is also a small part of it, if you put your tag on, make sure you HAVE the time to stay there for a minimum of one uninterrupted hour, specially if there is no one else to hand it over to.

MrKnieves.4162:

The good news is that now loot is giving plenty of badges to buy seige, bad news, sometimes is not enough and you will have to dig into your savings. I have a personal rule to avoid commanding unless I have enough seige to last for at least 4 hours.

Finances is also a small part of it, if you put your tag on, make sure you HAVE the time to stay there for a minimum of one uninterrupted hour, specially if there is no one else to hand it over to.

Yeah, I think of it in terms of “Raid Night”. Difference is you’re fighting people, not NPCs. Thank you for tips!

Roll a Mesmer, run a Jumping Puzzle, then have a few guildies advertise on all the PvE maps that you’re giving free Mesmer rides to the top of the Jumping Puzzle, & only asking that they donate some of the siege they get from the chest. Guilds have been doing this since release, and it can often give you 200-300 siege blueprints a week.

I donate monies to the Commanders on my server occasionally, especially when I know they don’t come from very large guilds. I’ve see a simple “thank you for the donations” said in /m chat by the receiving Commander generally gets a few more people to donate too.

Generally speaking, I believe there are a good bunch of people that know how expensive it is and want to help, they just need a gentle reminder.

I know a guild that does Portal runs through the jumping puzzles in WvW and asks for the siege loot as donations for their effort.