Guild Wars 2

I purchased a watchwork mining pick a while back and today when I was mining a rich iron node with it, 3 of the 10 or so pieces of iron I mined were “ruined chunks of ore”. I thought that only happened when you used a tool of a lesser tier than the node? I also thought the gemstore tools were equal to Orichalcum tools and could be used on all nodes? Am I going to have to worry about my watchwork pick ruining a percentage of the ore I need?

Were you in combat or under attack? That increases the chance to get ruined ores, and it’s almost guaranteed if you have traits that get activated when hit. It’s normal behavior unless you’re out of combat.

Ah I see. There was a champ guarding it, I had my summons distracting it, but that’s probably what caused it. It’s strange though, I’ve been in combat hundreds of times when I’ve been too lazy to stop and fight while farming, but this is the first time this has happened. Thanks though.

Being attacked at the moment you gather from a node has some percentage chance to ruin the gathering. It’s possible a Champ has a higher chance to ruin the harvest?

It seems to me that two things can cause ruined ore, aside from a low level gathering tool.

Certain skills and traits that trigger skills will ruin anything while gathering – Elementalist arcane shield for example. Anything gathered after the three charges are used and the shield detonates will be ruined until you ‘recast’ the harvest.

Certain attacks from mobs will also cause you to ruin ore. You’ll notice that most mob auto attacks won’t do this – but special attacks that cause other effects might, such as knockback. I don’t know if it’s a critical hit or some other criteria .

One thing I’ve noticed is that if your character stops holding whatever gathering tool is being used, and is forced to revert back to their weapon(s) while harvesting, whatever is being gathered will likely be ruined. Stop harvesting and recast it, or better yet, deal with the mobs and then try again.

There’s a tl;dr at the bottom; only the last line is really relevant to the thread.

One thing I’ve noticed is that if your character stops holding whatever gathering tool is being used, and is forced to revert back to their weapon(s) while harvesting, whatever is being gathered will likely be ruined. Stop harvesting and recast it, or better yet, deal with the mobs and then try again.

This one is similar to using any persistent emote then casting skills.
If you had your weapon drawn on starting the emote, you can cast any instant-cast skills you want (including swapping kits or attunements for Engi/Ele) without interrupting the action – but if you started the action with your weapon stowed, it’ll be interrupted when you draw your weapon to cast the skill.
For Eles and Engi weaponswap mechanics this means that the character’s appearance changes if they were wielding when they swapped to the emote – Elementalists can still gain the wrist-auras from attunements and Engineers will still swap out their backpack/weapon slots.

A couple of cases in which this is interesting:
- using teleports
Instant-cast teleports like Mesmers’ Blink will get you to draw your weapon… but if you’re running with your weapon stowed, then Blink somewhere, you’ll draw your weapon and appear to glide along, stuck on the first frame of ‘weapon in hand’ (or possibly the last frame of ‘draw weapon’?).
- doing persistent emotes like /dance or /sleep
If you activate an emote, your weapon will disappear for the duration of the emote. Using any form-changing skill (like the Elementalist utility Mist Form), or just swapping to and from town clothes, will bring your weapon(s) back into your hands if you previously had them drawn – allowing, for example, a charr to do their haka while waving pistols around.

Oops, long-winded-post-thing. Um.
tl;dr mess around with your town clothes you can look silly
Oh, and it might be worth checking if being in combat when you start mining nodes fixes the problem – or at least having your weapon drawn.