Guild Wars 2

If ArenaNet release details about how the mechanisms work you can bet money that the botters/bot makers would reprogram their bots within a few days to maximise efficiency. As it is, they’re kept guessing so market prices are a true reflection of supply and demand.

SiNoS.2147:

In my experience if i use a higher level tool in a low level area i tend to crit more on my harvesting. Where with copper picks for example i get 3 ore i’ve had multiple times using my steel picks where i get 5 ore per node and i’ve had up to 17 from a rich node.

Very interesting, thanks for posting. I think I’ll experiment with this later tomorrow when I get back into game.

There are a lot of merchants but I’ve found that the tools they sell scale to what level you are. For instance merchants in Queensdale will sell you copper/iron tools if you’re levels 1-10 and steel/darksteel tools if you’re 30-40. It seems the only way you can get the full range is by talking to a crafting master or go to one of those mega merchants, usually only found in capitals.

In response to the OP: it just comes down to how much you think it’s worth. You’ll be paying in terms of time and waypoint costs to get appropriate tools most of the time, so determining whether that cost is greater than the money saved by getting a lower tier tool is what’s important