Guild Wars 2

Having gone through all the replies (again) I have to thank all of you (again) for the excellent hints and tips. A big thank you to the sender of materials, that of course was a very quick fix.
And don’t worry about having to read between the lines. Having played a certain space pilot game with a 99.9% player driven/controlled market for a long time, I know how to look for business opportunities in such an environment. The GW2 economy can’t provide the same richness, consistency or player control but I agree there’s more than enough potential if that is your play style (which it is occasionally for me too).
Thanks all.

Great replies with good pointers, thank you all.

Leatherworking is the last craft I need to bring to 500, and I can’t seem to manage it without paying exorbitant prices. I admit it wasn’t high on the bucket list right after HoT came out, and now I’m stuck at around 465. Any hints (bar the “farm gold/buy gems and buy what you need”) for the poor leatherworker in these persistent times of extravagant hardened leather prices ? I’d like to craft a few ascended medium armor pieces for raiding with my guildies…

Apart from pushing all possible ecto and obsi recipes and the two elonian/damask recipes that still give some progress towards my leather person and scraping whatever leather I can afford for proper inventing , anything else ? I already salvage all leather items with a master kit (8 hours normal gaming nets me 1-2 squares per day). Anyone else having these issues or am I overlooking something ?

Googling the subject gave these interesting results – strictly fyi and backroom discussion:
data from gw2spidy, timepoints at Nov 1 2015 (a week after HoT release) and at Nov 30 2016 (today)
- hardened leather sections: avg sell price: 57c vs. 23s45c (x41 increase); avg sell listing volumes: 4000k vs. 28.9k (138-fold drop i.e., offers are 0.7% of what the available units volume was in 2015); avg buy listing volumes: 582k vs. 131k (4.4-fold drop i.e., demand has dropped to just below 25% of Nov 2015 levels)
- hardened leather squares : avg sell price: 1s82c vs. 72s23c (x40 increase); avg sell listing volumes: 217k vs. 17.4k (12.5-fold drop or 8% of Nov 2015); avg buy listing volumes: 139k vs. 104.6k (25% drop)
- no updated leveling guides for leatherworking since HoT release

Dire times indeed. Am I correct in concluding that leatherworking 500 leveling has become the most expensive and slowest of all the crafts (excluding scribing)? How do newer accounts cope with this ?

As a gw1 player – and I still have many screenshots of Gaile’s Farewell Party with the green frog to prove it – it took me a long while to adjust and adapt to gw2. Understanding and accepting that gw2 is a different game, with its own strengths and flaws when compared to the original one was the key to finally enjoy it to its full scope.

That being said, I took a chance by spending gems on the ls2 package, loved every single moment of it, took on some of the challenges for mastery (work in progress) on several of my characters. It was the best pile of gold I ever spent in the game, on a high quality story with well developed characters and situations, the raison d’etre for maps like the Silverwastes and Dry Top, a few very interesting fights and a totally refurbished Glint’s lair. And of course I became a Taimi fan (kudoz to Debi as her human vocalizer, and the life giving writers), arguably the best developed and defined character in the game in my opinion.

Then comes season 3, with its promise of the Fire Islands, Mursaat, and jade constructs which were the end game aspects of Prophecies. The first chapter cements the deal with Heart of Thorns and all the hard work put into collecting the mastery points there e.g., leyline gliding and yes, we do get a glimpse of the (only remaining?) Mursaat. Seeing old enemies back after 200+ years felt much like meeting old friends. Stockholm syndrome ? Who thought that Verdant Brink was a bit harsh on newly arrivals is in for a slightly bigger shock in this LS3 map. The wildlife is everywhere and deliciously hostile.

The second chapter drops us on the doorstep of the Fire Islands, and the place is every bit as foreboding and lethal as it used to be, with a beautiful graphical update of the environment. Ancient Magic mastery replaces the need for infused armor (a pity, ascension and infusion were the coolest features in gw1, surpassing just about any story accomplishments in gw2 I’m sorry to say), but the jade constructs are a lot tougher than they used to be (or is that because there are no heroes and henchmen following, lol). Yummy.

And now, the third chapter, leading us north into snow and ice, and Braham with a big icicle on his shoulder, hiding his face behind a newly found, iron clad attitude. More character and plot developments, a mad cycle of events (at least one of them on a six minute timer), wildlife that is a bit tamer except of course in the fights that really matter, and a gorgeous map with a user friendly roundabout leyline for fast travel.

By now we are accustomed to the aspects of LS3, the chapters appear shorter because we appear to be adapting to the new aspects. But every chapter is a small jewel in gw2’s crown, especially if one pays attention to the details and the sometimes lengthy conversations. The additional mastery points, ascended items for very affordable prices, new home instance nodes, these are more than just cherries on the cake. And Aurene is simply adorable, especially when she throws back the ball.
The GW2 team has done an outstanding job, and the next expansion is bound to be of the same quality. Trust them to be top story developers. Yes, wanting more.

Which leaves me with a few questions for the team:
- when, oh when, will you rebuild LS1 and release it as a package. It’s like a chapter torn from a book
- when (not if, mind you) can I get my obsidian necromancer armor back please ? austere and no-frills to the pointedness, also helps with the tan
- crystal desert, crystal desert !! some of my old characters’ ghosts are still wandering there in their favourite maps (others are still fighting the four horsemen in the underworld, or snooping around tombs of long forgotten kings)
- non-holo Taimi mini … although, full size is probably mini, okay full size ?
- Cantha !! Cantha !! there be dragons there too, yes ? please say yes, look at Taimi’s leyline map again, you see ?
- obsi necro armor reminder… got ectos and obsi a plenty … will travel to FoW or wherever

Over and Awesome

The Minstrel I: Two weeks into farming mushrooms for Indigo Mushrooms (quiche of darkness recipe component), 350+ nodes of all varieties, … granted without boosters or special gathering tools from TP…
Sofar: nothing, not a single indigo mushroom. I need five of them.
I wish it were a 10% chance of drop, I would have finished it by now.

ItsFishyTricks.7316:

Reizei.3054:

ItsFishyTricks.7316:

The Moot III: The Energizer:
Indigo Mushrooms do not stack, do not combine to create mushroom milk needed to craft Indigo Mushroom Milkshake.
Dance with Abaddon does not work at all

I have the same problem with Dance with Abaddon as the option to access the secret archive through Ogden has been disabled now and will need to be fixed.

Where do you actually harvest those mushrooms? They still haven’t dropped from mushroom nodes I’ve been going through in Tyria.

Dance with Abaddon is bugged as well, but a GM gave me the trophy to try and help me along. The indigo mushroom drops are ridiculously low, something like a 10% chance of drop for each harvest, and it’ll only drop one single mushroom each time. The recipe for the Indigo Mushroom Milkshake requires 250 indigo mushrooms. It took me around 20-30 hours(game-time hours) with gathering and item boosters on to get just 25 of them. I believe those both are still bugged. Try going into the Archives during the Hidden Arcana mission, they may have fixed it there. But I wouldn’t even try to get this Lege track done specifically because of the indigo mushroom thing. (If you can’t tell, I’m super kittened about this haha)

A similar item was needed for Meteorlogicus I, the Sun’s Light. This you obtain from the Cluster Of Light, which is in the top of the tree (in the Hidden Garden). That should be your next place to try.

Some mobs drop different items for several legendary weapons e.g., the Chickenado in Dry Top drops an item for Meteorlogicus I, and one for Minstrel I.

Hope this helps.