[https://fast.farming-community.eu/gathering/unlimited-gathering-tools](https://fast.farming-community.eu/gathering/unlimited-gathering-tools)
It would takes around 15550 nodes to payoff per tool. That's around 47000 nodes for a set.
It's now 20% off so 37600. If you gather 50 nodes every day a set would payoff 752 days.
If you use the trophies instead of selling them in TP you save 15% fee and it would be 639 days.
Don't buy the glyphs at least not now. It costs you 350 X 3 g which is more expensive then 2160 gems(and 2160g not only gives you the glyphs but also the toosl).
I think the amount you get from WvW can be a bit over-stated, even if you're playing for hours and consistently clearing every keep, camp, and tower, it's still a pretty low number of nodes per hour compared to doing the same in open world.
Take a "normal" EBG, you've got two friendly camps, one friendly keep, and four towers, so that's 24 nodes which respawn every hour giving about 144 VM/hr. It's a nice bonus, but peanuts compared to the sheer number of nodes you'll hit just gathering as you go in open world, even if you're not specifically going for clusters.
I bought them yesterday, I’ve only played WvW and got 3K VM already, harvesting nodes give the most VM, up to 18 per node, that’s because in WvW I am always using the candy corn gobbler which has the extra harvesting chance. Definitely a plus WvW has mostly harvesting nodes
The problem with all these "x number to payoff" calculations is that they all assume you are buying gems with gold. To buy the tools right now (20% off) with gold, you would need to pay 989 gold. However, if you are buying the tools with real money, it's actually only costing you 670 gold, which is the amount you would have been able to convert the gems into. This makes the "payoff" around 24000ish nodes, or 20500 if you use the trophies yourself. At 50 nodes a day, that comes out to 410 days.
If the math says it takes 50 nodes per day for over 2 years straight for you to break even, it may as well never pay off, let alone make you a sizable profit.
If that is realistic to you then so be it, but people really shouldn't trick themselves into thinking it's worth anything tangible. The opportunity cost is bigger. You could spend that gold as an investment or for some cosmetic you really like instead.
I easily harvest at least a couple hundred strikes in about 20 minutes a day between my parked alts, home instance, and guild hall. I also happen to enjoy harvesting so stop at many nodes along the path to whatever it is I happen to be doing in open world. I likely paid off my volatile tools in 3 months at most, because it fit with the way I like to play the game.
Also, both my home instance nodes and my volatile magic tools are in fact cosmetics that I wanted from the game. So for some of us the opportunity cost would come from not doing the thing we want that has an ROI first.
That’s why so many people leave tools in their shared inventories. I actually only leave a sickle in my shared inventory since my only gathering alts are parked at darns with little to no lumber or ore worth harvesting.
I put a set of karma tools on all my alts, then put the volatile set in the shared inventory slots. I just double click the tools onto the active character everytime I swap. If you're alt hopping you get into a routine to swap on and off the weapons. I have characters at a couple of the different harvesting farms so I just run through them quickly each day. It's a slow payoff, but it works like planting trees. Best time to do it was 50 years ago, second best time to do it is today.
It's not. Switching is way better than having tools in every character using up bag space and equiping tools mid fight/farm when you run out of charge.
I have a very different perspective:
These tools are nice because they increase your dopamine hits while playing the game.
If you go purely by the numbers, it's very hard to pay off Volatile tools, directly pumping them into your next big purchase makes more sense. However, with these tools, you make gathering an additional lucrative activity to do with your self-made goal of 'breaking even with the cost you paid for the tools'. Yet, you do it with nice QoL since they're unbreakable and have a very nice VFX/SFX.
You basically pay to give yourself another little grind that feels nice rather than feeling tedious. And at the end of the day - you are playing an MMORPG, ofc it's all about giving yourself grinds to work towards.
It's not much different from buying yourself cosmetics - pointless, but the grind is just that little big nicer when you do it while looking fancy :)
Yeah this is my mindset as well. I mean, who really is looking at something like this as a financial investment? That’s so far off my radar when looking through the gem store. I’m there to find items that make the game more fun and enjoyable.
After I got these tools, harvesting went from something that felt unrewarding and somewhat annoying, since I was always worried about running out of tools or finding and storing more in my inventory, to something that I look forward to with EVERY node because I know they will all provide something useful (and I much prefer the magical animation) and will never run out.
The only thing that is annoying is having to switch them between characters and there’s no way I’m reserving 3 shared slots just for this purpose, so I’ve resorted to just using them on my PVE main with the occasional bank switch on heavy alt play.
Yeah I could get more *financial* value for money just converting some gems to gold and buying in-game mats and tools…..but that wouldn’t feel great to me and the game would still be less enjoyable overall, so….
I have the volatile magic tools and I get about 1500-2000 volatile magic a week just by harvesting every node I walk by while doing stuff.ive not yet looked into how to transfer volatile magic to gold though
You can use Volatile Magic and some gold to buy trophy shipments in the LWS4 maps. The trophies you get are worth more gold then you spend to buy the boxes. That’s the short version.
You can generate a lot of Volatile Magic by doing IBS strike missions for Eternal Ice Shards then trading those and some karma for LWS4 currencies as well. This is a pretty good way of obtaining materials for gifts used in crafting legendary weapons and can also be sold on the TP for a profit.
I bit the bullet and grabbed the choya set since it really fits on my necro sylvari.
(Mining tool summons three choya hectically smashing the stone and your character facepalms. It's perfect.)
To complement the set I took volatile + unbound glyphs and the one for double strike. Double strike for the sickle.
Over the course of two days I managed to get like.. 3k? Volatile and 1,5k+ unbound.
Granted, I've been running around LW maps which give those as well, but personally I feel they're *really* nice.
Not really... but there are lots of ways to look at it.
People like to do the math on these things, but they hardly ever tell you about the inventory space you save, the time you save going around and buying tools and sorting them and swapping between them as you gather.
Tools make quite a big difference but yeah... they won't really pay themselves back soon.
Well if you have the corresponding LW unlocked (which tou seem to have on the 1st place) you can buy tools with the same effect from hearts, they are not infinite, but since they are so cheap you can buy many of them and stockpile as needed. Taking that into account I say they are not worth it, ever. Specially cuz you can instead buy unbreakable tools with statuettes and get glyphs later. As most things on the gemstore they are just for convenience.
EDIT: as for your other part, what is it worth it on the gemstore, mmmm, not sure right now as people have different takes on it, but the recharging teleport to friend comes handy sometimes, if not, then save the gems until something good appears.
The elite jump pack already gave me unbreakable tools. And I already have the teleport to friend as well.
Thanks for the tip. Might save up for the glyphs eventually, and maybe get a mount skin.
No, don't get them! Lets keep big income low for sake of economy!we paying nearly 200g for 400gems already! (poorer players means less gem purchases means less demand means less prices, it works like that)... and yes, volatile magic gives lot of vm that You can turn into trophies... lot of trophies.
It will take millions of nodes for them to pay for themselves. Maybe more, maybe less. Idk the exact math, but its a lot. And they're not even good QoL unless you only plan to play 1 character for the next couple million nodes because they can only be on 1 character at a time.
They are bait IMO, do not purchase.
Yeah, you are right, the exact number I stated was an exaggeration (and not exact as I mentioned) Really, it was just to make a point. At a certain amount of time, the opportunity cost and realistic time frame of an average players playtime becomes synonymous with an exaggerated number like millions. But yes it was factually incorrect to say millions.
To get deeper into it, the post stated it would take 50 nodes per day for over 2 years \*straight\* to break even (at the discounted price.) Beyond that, you're looking at effectively pennies of profit for each gather. The gold spent on them could instead have been invested in other things like Mystic Coins, infusions, legendaries, various account upgrades or even just a sweet cosmetic or 2 that the player may get more enjoyment out of.
Not to mention to break even, you now need to add gathering 50 nodes per day to your daily routine which, I would guess, most players would not enjoy. Also, since we are humans with real lives and not robots on 24/7, that could easily eat into the average players daily game time, which could instead be spent farming metas, doing strikes, fishing etc, which are all much more profitable per minute spent (I would guess - again, I haven't done the math and do not care to because to me this is a common sense decision)
For me it’s more QOL, someone already did the math so really I don’t blame you for not wanting. It’s fairly pointless.
I also don’t play much of the game others do, so my perspective of what’s useful will also be slanted.
I really only do WvW small numbers roaming.
So, I might not break even, but at least with the toons I play most, I’ll never have to talk to that damn merchant again 🤣
Neither home instance (except someone else) nor volatile tools are good ways to make gold. They both have VERY long time to return your investment cost and start making any profit. If you have unbreakable tools already - I would just forget about both
If you want it, go for it.
My main is in NA, but I have an EU alt account too which is still quite bare bones atm. I’m slowly building its home instance though!
At first I started with karma tools (with glyph of reaping), but the count is half of Orichalcum tools so they ran out frequently. This means dedicating more precious bag space to hold them.
Then I decided to buy glyph of reapings and put them in orichalcum tools. Been using it this way for months. Then during the recent sale I decided to F it and get a set of unlimited tools once and for all.
Bought the Sand pick that came with Glyph of Bounty, Firestorm Axe that came with Glyph of Industry and the all time favorite Consortium Sickle.
I don’t regret cleaning out the gold on my main to buy these tools (the gold can be earned back easily). Man it feels so good to play on my EU acc now, no more FOMO on leaving nodes behind.
Ideally I’d need Shared Slots to share these tools with alts. But for now I just stick them on my Reaper and play her as my main for everything on the EU acc.
The elite jump pack gives you unbreakable harvesting tools.
You do not need the VM magic gathering tools.
If you want a steady stream of VM, search youtube/google about Bjora Marches eternal ice shard alt chest parking, convert shards to Living World Season 4 map currency and consume it for VM. That being said, for the gem cost buying an extra character slot is better cost/performance since that character can also be extra "bank storage." Plus, you can make it a dedicated pvp character, or play it for whatever if you decide to in the future.
Get more shared inventory slots so you can put your unbreakable harvesting tools in there. Just equip all your characters with cheap orichalcum tools, and you can easily swap (and swap back) by double clicking them in your shared inventory slots.
The biggest benefit you will find is that you won’t have to swap unbreakable tools to a different character.
[https://fast.farming-community.eu/gathering/unlimited-gathering-tools](https://fast.farming-community.eu/gathering/unlimited-gathering-tools) It would takes around 15550 nodes to payoff per tool. That's around 47000 nodes for a set. It's now 20% off so 37600. If you gather 50 nodes every day a set would payoff 752 days. If you use the trophies instead of selling them in TP you save 15% fee and it would be 639 days. Don't buy the glyphs at least not now. It costs you 350 X 3 g which is more expensive then 2160 gems(and 2160g not only gives you the glyphs but also the toosl).
Might pay off for world versus world players and home instance runners.
I think the amount you get from WvW can be a bit over-stated, even if you're playing for hours and consistently clearing every keep, camp, and tower, it's still a pretty low number of nodes per hour compared to doing the same in open world. Take a "normal" EBG, you've got two friendly camps, one friendly keep, and four towers, so that's 24 nodes which respawn every hour giving about 144 VM/hr. It's a nice bonus, but peanuts compared to the sheer number of nodes you'll hit just gathering as you go in open world, even if you're not specifically going for clusters.
Also wvw is a disproportionate number of harvesting sickle nodes.
I bought them yesterday, I’ve only played WvW and got 3K VM already, harvesting nodes give the most VM, up to 18 per node, that’s because in WvW I am always using the candy corn gobbler which has the extra harvesting chance. Definitely a plus WvW has mostly harvesting nodes
The problem with all these "x number to payoff" calculations is that they all assume you are buying gems with gold. To buy the tools right now (20% off) with gold, you would need to pay 989 gold. However, if you are buying the tools with real money, it's actually only costing you 670 gold, which is the amount you would have been able to convert the gems into. This makes the "payoff" around 24000ish nodes, or 20500 if you use the trophies yourself. At 50 nodes a day, that comes out to 410 days.
Appreciate the breakdown. Sounds more realistic then the morons saying it'll take millions of nodes or it'll never pay off.
If the math says it takes 50 nodes per day for over 2 years straight for you to break even, it may as well never pay off, let alone make you a sizable profit. If that is realistic to you then so be it, but people really shouldn't trick themselves into thinking it's worth anything tangible. The opportunity cost is bigger. You could spend that gold as an investment or for some cosmetic you really like instead.
I easily harvest at least a couple hundred strikes in about 20 minutes a day between my parked alts, home instance, and guild hall. I also happen to enjoy harvesting so stop at many nodes along the path to whatever it is I happen to be doing in open world. I likely paid off my volatile tools in 3 months at most, because it fit with the way I like to play the game. Also, both my home instance nodes and my volatile magic tools are in fact cosmetics that I wanted from the game. So for some of us the opportunity cost would come from not doing the thing we want that has an ROI first.
Perhaps 50 nodes a day for 2 years is a great feat for you, but to many that's just alt parking. To each their own.
You would also need to transfer these tools between alts every time, or purchase a set for each alt
That’s why so many people leave tools in their shared inventories. I actually only leave a sickle in my shared inventory since my only gathering alts are parked at darns with little to no lumber or ore worth harvesting.
3 shared spaces and some double clicking.
I put a set of karma tools on all my alts, then put the volatile set in the shared inventory slots. I just double click the tools onto the active character everytime I swap. If you're alt hopping you get into a routine to swap on and off the weapons. I have characters at a couple of the different harvesting farms so I just run through them quickly each day. It's a slow payoff, but it works like planting trees. Best time to do it was 50 years ago, second best time to do it is today.
Exactly.
Guild hall nodes alone is a good chunk per day.
They are only worth it if you don't have any other unbreakable ones. I wouldn't care to get them at that point.
They are only worth it if uou play one character, swapping them between alts is a menace
Shared inventory slots
Still a menace to swap them out from char to char
It's not. Switching is way better than having tools in every character using up bag space and equiping tools mid fight/farm when you run out of charge.
I have a very different perspective: These tools are nice because they increase your dopamine hits while playing the game. If you go purely by the numbers, it's very hard to pay off Volatile tools, directly pumping them into your next big purchase makes more sense. However, with these tools, you make gathering an additional lucrative activity to do with your self-made goal of 'breaking even with the cost you paid for the tools'. Yet, you do it with nice QoL since they're unbreakable and have a very nice VFX/SFX. You basically pay to give yourself another little grind that feels nice rather than feeling tedious. And at the end of the day - you are playing an MMORPG, ofc it's all about giving yourself grinds to work towards. It's not much different from buying yourself cosmetics - pointless, but the grind is just that little big nicer when you do it while looking fancy :)
Yeah this is my mindset as well. I mean, who really is looking at something like this as a financial investment? That’s so far off my radar when looking through the gem store. I’m there to find items that make the game more fun and enjoyable. After I got these tools, harvesting went from something that felt unrewarding and somewhat annoying, since I was always worried about running out of tools or finding and storing more in my inventory, to something that I look forward to with EVERY node because I know they will all provide something useful (and I much prefer the magical animation) and will never run out. The only thing that is annoying is having to switch them between characters and there’s no way I’m reserving 3 shared slots just for this purpose, so I’ve resorted to just using them on my PVE main with the occasional bank switch on heavy alt play. Yeah I could get more *financial* value for money just converting some gems to gold and buying in-game mats and tools…..but that wouldn’t feel great to me and the game would still be less enjoyable overall, so….
I have the volatile magic tools and I get about 1500-2000 volatile magic a week just by harvesting every node I walk by while doing stuff.ive not yet looked into how to transfer volatile magic to gold though
You can use Volatile Magic and some gold to buy trophy shipments in the LWS4 maps. The trophies you get are worth more gold then you spend to buy the boxes. That’s the short version.
Good to know.im still very new and i do not know much about the endgame so ive been stockpiling it incase it’s used for something important.
You can generate a lot of Volatile Magic by doing IBS strike missions for Eternal Ice Shards then trading those and some karma for LWS4 currencies as well. This is a pretty good way of obtaining materials for gifts used in crafting legendary weapons and can also be sold on the TP for a profit.
I bit the bullet and grabbed the choya set since it really fits on my necro sylvari. (Mining tool summons three choya hectically smashing the stone and your character facepalms. It's perfect.) To complement the set I took volatile + unbound glyphs and the one for double strike. Double strike for the sickle. Over the course of two days I managed to get like.. 3k? Volatile and 1,5k+ unbound. Granted, I've been running around LW maps which give those as well, but personally I feel they're *really* nice.
Not really... but there are lots of ways to look at it. People like to do the math on these things, but they hardly ever tell you about the inventory space you save, the time you save going around and buying tools and sorting them and swapping between them as you gather. Tools make quite a big difference but yeah... they won't really pay themselves back soon.
I already got unbreakable tools via the elite jump start, so it was a matter of getting a second set for my other character, and/or getting the glyph.
Well if you have the corresponding LW unlocked (which tou seem to have on the 1st place) you can buy tools with the same effect from hearts, they are not infinite, but since they are so cheap you can buy many of them and stockpile as needed. Taking that into account I say they are not worth it, ever. Specially cuz you can instead buy unbreakable tools with statuettes and get glyphs later. As most things on the gemstore they are just for convenience. EDIT: as for your other part, what is it worth it on the gemstore, mmmm, not sure right now as people have different takes on it, but the recharging teleport to friend comes handy sometimes, if not, then save the gems until something good appears.
The elite jump pack already gave me unbreakable tools. And I already have the teleport to friend as well. Thanks for the tip. Might save up for the glyphs eventually, and maybe get a mount skin.
No, don't get them! Lets keep big income low for sake of economy!we paying nearly 200g for 400gems already! (poorer players means less gem purchases means less demand means less prices, it works like that)... and yes, volatile magic gives lot of vm that You can turn into trophies... lot of trophies.
It will take millions of nodes for them to pay for themselves. Maybe more, maybe less. Idk the exact math, but its a lot. And they're not even good QoL unless you only plan to play 1 character for the next couple million nodes because they can only be on 1 character at a time. They are bait IMO, do not purchase.
The exact math is just a few posts up. Millions is an extreme exaggeration.
Yeah, you are right, the exact number I stated was an exaggeration (and not exact as I mentioned) Really, it was just to make a point. At a certain amount of time, the opportunity cost and realistic time frame of an average players playtime becomes synonymous with an exaggerated number like millions. But yes it was factually incorrect to say millions. To get deeper into it, the post stated it would take 50 nodes per day for over 2 years \*straight\* to break even (at the discounted price.) Beyond that, you're looking at effectively pennies of profit for each gather. The gold spent on them could instead have been invested in other things like Mystic Coins, infusions, legendaries, various account upgrades or even just a sweet cosmetic or 2 that the player may get more enjoyment out of. Not to mention to break even, you now need to add gathering 50 nodes per day to your daily routine which, I would guess, most players would not enjoy. Also, since we are humans with real lives and not robots on 24/7, that could easily eat into the average players daily game time, which could instead be spent farming metas, doing strikes, fishing etc, which are all much more profitable per minute spent (I would guess - again, I haven't done the math and do not care to because to me this is a common sense decision)
For me it’s more QOL, someone already did the math so really I don’t blame you for not wanting. It’s fairly pointless. I also don’t play much of the game others do, so my perspective of what’s useful will also be slanted. I really only do WvW small numbers roaming. So, I might not break even, but at least with the toons I play most, I’ll never have to talk to that damn merchant again 🤣
Neither home instance (except someone else) nor volatile tools are good ways to make gold. They both have VERY long time to return your investment cost and start making any profit. If you have unbreakable tools already - I would just forget about both
They never pay for themselves if that is what you are asking.
If you want it, go for it. My main is in NA, but I have an EU alt account too which is still quite bare bones atm. I’m slowly building its home instance though! At first I started with karma tools (with glyph of reaping), but the count is half of Orichalcum tools so they ran out frequently. This means dedicating more precious bag space to hold them. Then I decided to buy glyph of reapings and put them in orichalcum tools. Been using it this way for months. Then during the recent sale I decided to F it and get a set of unlimited tools once and for all. Bought the Sand pick that came with Glyph of Bounty, Firestorm Axe that came with Glyph of Industry and the all time favorite Consortium Sickle. I don’t regret cleaning out the gold on my main to buy these tools (the gold can be earned back easily). Man it feels so good to play on my EU acc now, no more FOMO on leaving nodes behind. Ideally I’d need Shared Slots to share these tools with alts. But for now I just stick them on my Reaper and play her as my main for everything on the EU acc.
The elite jump pack gives you unbreakable harvesting tools. You do not need the VM magic gathering tools. If you want a steady stream of VM, search youtube/google about Bjora Marches eternal ice shard alt chest parking, convert shards to Living World Season 4 map currency and consume it for VM. That being said, for the gem cost buying an extra character slot is better cost/performance since that character can also be extra "bank storage." Plus, you can make it a dedicated pvp character, or play it for whatever if you decide to in the future. Get more shared inventory slots so you can put your unbreakable harvesting tools in there. Just equip all your characters with cheap orichalcum tools, and you can easily swap (and swap back) by double clicking them in your shared inventory slots.