Farming
From Guild Wars Wiki
Farming plays a large part in getting gold and crafting materials for armor, weapons and offhand items. It is when one or more players go to a certain region and attack creatures and/or bosses attempting to obtain rare items, experience and gold. This is generally done by using specific builds that are created to be used solo or in a group to amass wealth.
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[edit] Methods of farming for items, gold, materials, faction and reputation points
The methods known to some are both very long and can get very boring fast. Most of these can be done solo or in a group.
[edit] Method 1 (starter farming)
Self explanatory and doesn't require you to have a Salvage Kit. You will need as large an inventory as you can get though just in case you do get some interesting drops along the way, but you won't be depending on having the extra storage space with this method. This method is the most basic. You simply go out kill foes and pick up the drops that you want to sell to the merchant. Because you are "merch-ing" the drops you won't need to salvage them. This method is most suitable to most areas in pre-Searing Ascalon and other similar areas.
[edit] Method 2 (materials farming)
You will need to pick up every drop with this method because you are going to salvage the items that you consider unnecessary for materials or other sellable items. For this method to be really effective you need as much storage as you can get on your character. Of course you also need lots of Salvage and some Identification Kits to stay out longer. Your inventory should be mostly empty to start save 1 Superior Identification Kit, 1 Superior Salvage Kit, and 10 standard Salvage Kits. You need the Superior Identification Kit to identify blue, purple and gold items and a Superior Salvage Kit to salvage those items. The 10 remaining Salvage Kits are for everything else. Having all of that means spending around 3-4k, but you will be getting materials and potentially higher value items while out farming. This means that you can end up with lots of sellable materials from farming and thus can get the additional gold out of them from other players or trader NPCs. Although this method can take longer it does mean having 2 sources of income for farmers who prefer this method.
If you are farming in an area where inscribable weapons drop, consider also taking inscriptions of "Measure for Measure" as this will greatly increase the salvage from rare drops with subpar inscriptions on them.
Although many solo farmers tend to do selective farming, anywhere you can solo the entire area you can "materials farm".
See crafting material for a list of materials.
[edit] Method 3 (selective farming)
This method is usually used by seasoned players or new players who want just one type of drop. This method is usually used for getting unique items or lots of specific items or materials. Many selective farmers will solo if they think it will prove more successful. With this method you will still want Superior Salvage and Identification Kits, but the amount is completely up to you. This type of farmer also tends to frequent the higher level areas, because the drops are of higher quality (or so it is believed). Some of the areas that this type of farmer will visit require the player to rezone to continue farming. This isn't always the case, but it happens. Players should realize that it could take 5 minutes or 5 hours to get the unique item they want so be prepared to deal with the boredom.
Selective farming can also be used for the purpose of gaining reputation points or faction points (Faction farming). In this case the farmer is not worried about the item or gold drops they get, they are just looking for the points they need to raise their standing with a faction: Luxon/Kurzick, Asura, Vanguard, Norn, Sunspear, or Lightbringer. When a player goes farming for these points they usually end up repeating repeatable quests or clearing entire zones and rezoning to start over again.
See faction farm, fast faction farming, or Balthazar faction.
[edit] Styles of farming
The following can be used for any of the methods above:
[edit] Solo farming
It should be pointed out that most solo farmers are players with very specific builds and equipment. In most cases you will hear of monks, necromancers, warriors and elementalists (though builds exist for every class using secondary professions) being able to solo parts of certain areas. This is because those people have found the right build to farm in those areas; however, it is possible to use a mostly universal build to get similar results.
These kinds of solo farmers tend to do selective farming, because the foes they face drop specific types of items that they are looking for. It is possible to farm certain foes for materials, usually you end up with only 1 or 2 types of materials and the drops can quickly degrade through loot scaling. Because true "materials farming" is done across an entire area, you can get more for your efforts in the long run and loot scaling really doesn't have a major effect on your farming run.
As long as you can manage the damage that you take in at least one area on your map you can solo farm somewhere. That doesn't mean it will be a high level area though. In the beginning it usually is in the low level areas that most can solo farm. Most of the areas in Guild Wars have their own set of challenges, so solo farming builds are not necessarily universal.
Examples of solo farming:
[edit] Group farming
Group farming, simply put, is when a group of players farm together. Due to having a party of human players, group farming is preferred for more advanced areas, where it is more difficult to survive. These farmers tend to use either starter or materials farming methods while in an area, as the drops are shared among the entire group rather than just one person.
[edit] Notes
- Over-farming an area will decrease the drop rates there temporarily.
[edit] Loot scaling exempt items
- Skill tomes
- Scrolls
- Dye
- Rare crafting materials, such as Glob of Ectoplasm or Obsidian Shard
- Gemstones from the Domain of Anguish
- All other rare (gold) items like Icy Dragon Swords
- All unique (green) items
- Special event items
