How to Make Gold in Guild Wars 2? The Best Farming Methods!

GW2 How to make gold?

Gold is the most widespread currency in Guild Wars 2. You will need a lot of it, especially if you’re interested in getting the Legendary items. Similarly to multiple other MMORPGs, there are lots of different ways to get that resource across Tyria. Some of them might require significant initial capital. Others can be considered challenging or even risky. That being said, with the right amount of patience and consistency, you will be able to make thousands of gold, even if you’re starting from nothing.

Not every GW2 item is tradable, but in many cases, there are ways of working that around. For instance, some of the most complex crafting recipes require multiple steps, as the final item consists of precursor items that also have to be crafted. On the one hand, it makes the whole process longer and more difficult. On the other hand, it creates some more possibilities for in-game trading. While the Legendaries themselves can’t be sold through the Trading Post, the precursors can. It means that with the right amount of gold, you can get much closer to the most prestigious items in the entire game! Farming up for Legendaries doesn't have to take years - with a good strategy and enough self-discipline you can save up for a Legendary weapon in 2-3 months. 

Without further ado, let’s take a look at some tips for the best money-making methods in Guild Wars 2!

Table of contents

Group content

   Fractals

   Raids

   Dungeons

Grinding

Farming events

   Silverwastes

   Volatile Magic

   Shiny Baubles</a

   Dragonfall

Crafting Materials

Dailies

Summary

FAQ

Group PvE Content

Almost all MMORPGs offer some ways of acquiring valuable items through the group content. The farming methods in the history of this genre have often been based on clearing dungeons, slaying raid bosses, or speedrunning some specific types of instances. Basically, all of that is true for Guild Wars 2.  

Fractals of the Mist

Fractals are a particular type of dungeon that can reward the players with really valuable gear and crafting components. They are divided into four tiers based on their difficulty and loot. The first tier is for difficulty level 1-25 – the only requirement to enter them is having a level 80 character, T2 is for 26-50 difficulty, T3 is 51-75, and the most rewarding T4 is for difficulty levels 76-100. The only way of unlocking higher tiers is by playing a lot of Fractals and collecting rewards. This level increases whenever you complete a Fractal that’s equal to your current level or higher.

On levels 20+, the enemies and bosses start to inflict Agony – a debuff that makes the affected players lose a percentage of their maximum Health every second. It can’t be cleansed with condition removal abilities, but its effects may be significantly reduced if you have Agony Resistance. You can get that statistic from infusions on the Ascended and Legendary gear.

Fractals are considered some of the more challenging pieces of PvE group content in the game. In order to complete them, you will have to use meta builds and learn to play them effectively. Proper coordination with your group can also be necessary, especially in the high tiers. While they’re relatively difficult, a well-trained team can actually complete them extremely fast.

The valuable loot includes Fractal Encryptions and Fractal Encryption Keys. You can either open the encryptions or decide to sell them on the Trading Post. In higher tiers, you can also get full Ascended items or their components. Moreover, you can find unique crafting materials like Stabilizing Matrix. Besides the regular loot, there’s a possibility of using the daily mechanics. You can receive daily rewards for each tier of Fractals.

Furthermore, every day you can buy 30 Deeply Discounted Fractal Encryption Keys to optimize your gold gains. If you’re planning on doing a lot of Fractals, make sure to unlock the mastery called Recursive Resourcing. It makes the rewards even more valuable.

Raid Bosses

Raids are another example of endgame PvE content that's worth your time. You will definitely need a coordinated, well-geared group of proficient players in order to clear them efficiently. Besides DPSing the enemy, you will also have to watch out for the raid mechanics. At the same time, you can only get the improved once per week in each of the seven raids. Because of that, you won’t be able to make raids your primary source of income. However, we still encourage you to do them if you have the possibility.

The rewards are really valuable. They include Exotic items and the Ascended raid weapons. You can loot miniatures (also called mini pets), Legendary Insights, and Legendary Divinations that are used for crafting Legendaries in the Mystic Forge. Moreover, there’s a possibility of receiving Magnetite Shards or Gaeting Crystals, and some rewards that are unique to each boss. The first three raids are parts of the Forsaken Thicket – they’re called Spirit Vale, Salvation Pass, and Stronghold of the Faithful. The remaining four are Bastion of the Penitent, Hall of Chains, Mythwright Gambit, and The Key of Ahdashim. Unlike the Fractals, Raids don’t have any difficulty levels or tiers.

Dungeons

If you’re interested in some slightly easier group content that still can provide significant amounts of gold coins, dungeons are a great option to consider. Each dungeon can be completed in two ways: Story Mode and Explorable Mode. Your first run has to be completed in the Story Mode, which is streamlined and more manageable. Later, you can access the Explorable Mode that’s more challenging, but it can be completed via multiple paths. These runs also provide better drops. The loot from dungeons includes gold, dungeon tokens, and of course, everything that you get from killed monsters.

Dungeons also have a daily system for additional rewards. Finishing each dungeon in story mode and explorable mode at least once unlocks a repeatable achievement called Dungeon Frequenter. If you have access to it, completing eight different paths each day provides you with extra gold and a Chest of Dungeoneering that contains some rare loot. Completing these runs is not that difficult; you might be able to do it even without playing the top meta builds and having perfect gear. On the other hand, if you’re interested in farming gold as efficiently as possible, you definitely should optimize these things. Once again, powerful builds in the hands of skilled players will make everything go smoother and faster, and time is also a resource.

The dungeon tokens can be exchanged at Dungeon Armors and Weapons vendor for gear, components, and crafting materials. Some of these items can be sold through the Trading Posts for worthwhile prices. You can salvage the others for inscriptions, insignia, and Globes of Ectoplasm. 

Grinding

In the vast world of Tyria, there are particular locations where you can make a lot of gold by the good old grinding. Most (but not all) of them require participating in events. On some maps, quickly killing monsters and collecting loot is actually a worthwhile strategy. You can kill Veteran Karkas (and other Karkas) in Southsun Cove to farm Karka Shells. It’s possible to do it solo, but you will be much faster and more efficient with a team of 4-5 people. These monsters are durable, and they take a while to kill if you’re by yourself. GW2 it's not the typical old school MMO where you would train huge groups of monsters and kill them with AoE spells as the most lucrative farming method. 

Farming events

You don’t necessarily have to repeatedly complete group content in order to make substantial amounts of GW2 Gold. There are some beginner-friendly methods that don’t require cutting edge equipment or an extremely coordinated group. These farming techniques are really efficient, but you still will have to put in some hours in order to accumulate large amounts of gold. 

Silverwastes

The Silverwastes is an explorable zone located in Maguuma Wastes. It features two nice GW2 gold farming methods: RIBA and chest farming. RIBA is an abbreviation for Red Rock Bastion, Indigo Cave, Blue Oasis, and Amber Sandfall – names of the four outposts. The general idea relies on circling around the map, tagging the events in each of the forts to be eligible for rewards. With the right amount of players and some practice, you will be able to run without dropping any of these events. It's a quite dynamic and fun farming method, many players actually love running the meta events in the Silverwastes. 

The most important rewards are three types of bags that contain equipment and valuable materials. Bags of Gear are the rewards for completing the events. Embroidered Coin Purses can be found in Lost Bandit Chests that are scattered around the Silverwastes. Just remember that you will need Bandit Skeleton Keys in order to open them. When you get some Bandit Crests, make sure to exchange them for these keys at Camp Resolve. Finally, Noxious Seed Pouches drop from Nightmare Chests and bosses.

Guild Wars 2 features an interesting mechanic associated with opening these bags. The potential loot depends on the level of character that opens the boxes. That being said, it doesn’t mean that you should always open them on a level 80 character. Some lower-level crafting materials can be more valuable if you’re planning to sell them on the Trading Post (and you should). To make as much gold as possible from Silverwastes farming, you should track the market prices of different materials and optimize your gains by opening the bags on a character that’s inside a specific character level range. The prices will change over time, but you can find all the necessary details on the Internet.

How to farm Silverwastes?

As we mentioned earlier, Silverwastes farming relies on cycling through the four outposts, partaking in the events, and receiving the completion rewards. You will only have to kill 5-6 monsters around each fortress to be eligible for the prizes. At the same time, you can get extra value from opening chests, collecting loot from mobs, and taking part in the additional events focused on escorting dolyaks.

As the name suggests, the standard pattern is stating at the Red outposts, then going into Indigo, Blue and Amber. During the first cycle, you have to capture the keeps and activate events. They will then spawn in the same order – that’s why it’s essential to start with the correct sequence. It is the most efficient method of Silverwastes farming.

Successfully defending all the fortresses fills a meta-event bar on the side of your screen. Once it’s 100% full, a boss will spawn in each of the outposts. You will have to defeat them as fast as possible (we think it’s best to split into smaller groups and fight all of them at the same time).

After you kill them, the second phase will commence. It requires the players to escort rams in three lanes to reach the final bosses. You’ll have to start with the bottom lane, then go to the middle and finally top. Killing these three bosses means completing the meta-event. They can drop some really valuable loot, including Charged Quartz Orichalcum Amulet of the Hive. Even though it’s an account bound accessory, it’s nice to have.

After the event, there’s a 20-minute downtime. If you’re interested in a more extended farming session, you can use this window for a chest run. You don’t have to keep track of any additional tasks, so take your time, find all the chests and open them. We recommend following a more experienced player during this part. Just make sure that you have enough Bandit Skeleton Keys. Otherwise, you’ll be wasting your precious time. Moreover, keep track of the break timer, you don’t want to be late for the next RIBA run.

Volatile Magic Farming

Volatile Magic has been introduced in the Path of Fire expansion and the Living World season 4. In order to farm it efficiently, you’re going to need a maximum level character with a mount. This resource can be obtained in six locations: Domain of Istan, Sandswept Islands, Domain of Kourna, Jahai Bluffs, Thunderhead Peaks, and Dragonfall. There are multiple ways of getting it: killing monsters, exploring the maps, and extracting the gathering nodes. However, you can get the most by cycling through meta-events. The most efficient ones take place in Dragonfall and Thunderhead Peaks.

When you collect enough of it, you can exchange it for Trophy Shipments (each one costs 250 Volatile Magic and 1 gold). These boxes contain tier 5 and 6 materials that you can sell with profit on the Trading Post.

Shiny Baubles

Since the Heart of Thorns update, there’s always a possibility to farm Shiny Baubles on one of the maps. These items are just useless trophies that can be sold to vendors for 30 silver each. There are three zones eligible for Shiny Baubles: Auric Basin, Tangled Depths, and Verdant Brink. Just check which one is active at the moment and start completing the events as fast as you can! Once again, joining a group is recommended, since it makes farming faster.

Dragonfall

Dragonfall is a zone that has been introduced in the Path of Fire. It features an interesting and efficient farming method that’s based on participating in meta events and collecting Mistborn Coffers that contain valuable items and materials. Being eligible for event rewards is important since they’ll provide you with Mistborn Keys that are necessary to open the coffers.

The meta event is relatively complex. The first part requires the players to run through the southern and western bridges on the Roller Beetle. After you complete the first bridge, you can waypoint back and go to the next one. With enough practice, you should be able to tag both events. After that, the three escort events will start. They provide really valuable rewards, so make sure to tag them all. It’s possible if you go south first, west second, and leave the middle one for last. Each escort ends with a boss fights. You have to finish them quickly if you want to tag all three.

After that, we enter the stage of upgrading camps. All the events associated with a camp have to be completed to do that. They don’t provide much loot in terms of gold value, but they’re the main source of Mistborn Keys. As usual, your main goal is to cycle between Mist Warden Camp, Olmakhan Camp, and Crystal Bloom Camp as quickly as possible, while making sure that you’re eligible for the event rewards. Menders are the most important opponents to kill. Hence they provide the best loot.  This part ends after all the camps are upgraded to level 4.

Then, each of the camps gets two escort events. At this point, you should definitely split up and try to make sure that all the escorts reach their goals as quickly as possible. If your caravan completed its run early, go and support the others – there’s no time to waste.

When all the escorts hit their mark, it’s time for the final encounter – the Elder Dragon Kralkatorrik. The fight relies on attacking the three weak spots and beating minibosses. It’s best to split up and kill these bosses simultaneously.

After Kralkatorrik, there’s one more stage that features slaying nine bonus bosses. They all drop Mistborn Keys and even more Mistborn Coffers, so make sure to kill all of them and reap the rewards. After you’re done with all the bosses, the event will be about to start again, with not much downtime – it’s another reason that makes this method extremely efficient.

Collecting and Selling Crafting Materials

We briefly talked about it in the previous section, but some crafting materials can be surprisingly expensive on the Trading Post. You should always make sure that you collect all the crafting materials and components when you’re killing monsters, exploring maps, or doing pretty much anything in Guild Wars 2. It’s even more important for characters that haven’t reached the level cap yet. You should never walk away from mats laying on the ground. Even if you won't sell them, you can always use them to craft something.

These items remain valuable because of the way that crafting disciplines work in GW2. In order to level any crafting professions, you’re going to have to synthesize multiple items based on different level recipes. Some of them will require components that can’t be bought from vendors. The demand for these materials is relatively high, as many people are still maxing out their crafters. At the same time, the supply is limited, as experienced players can get straight to level 80 with Tomes of Knowledge.

While continuously making new characters to farm materials in these limited level windows is still a questionable strategy, making sure that you collect all the mats while you’re adventuring is something that every player should do. It’s not a farming method, but it can help you generate more gold while playing Guild Wars 2.

Dailies

Finally, Guild Wars 2 offers a number of possibilities to slowly but surely accumulate gold and other valuable resources every day. Most of them are really easy to do, but doing them consistently requires some discipline and dedication. These things are usually not that popular since they won’t make you rich overnight, but they require relatively low effort, and they add up to significant amounts of gold over time. Remember, every little bit matters!

Laurels – they’re an account-bound currency that you receive for your daily login. You can later exchange them for various tradable or untradable items at the Laurel Merchant. It’s essential to log in every day because there are extra rewards for consecutive daily logins. If you want to min-max Laurel gains, you can use another account to collect them. While you won’t be able to transfer Laurels to your main account, you will be able to send gold or the tradable items. Even if you don’t necessarily have the free time to do anything in-game, it’s recommended to log in daily and receive the Laurel reward if you have a chance - it only takes a few minutes.

Daily Achievements – every day, you can complete any three achievements and receive 10 Achievement Points as well as 2 gold. You can pick which ones you want to do. If you’re interested in efficiency, just go with some easy and quick options. Daily Achievements can also be completed in PvP modes.

Daily Dungeon Paths – as we explained in the dungeons section, you can unlock the Dungeon Frequenter achievement that will grant you 5 gold and a Chest of Dungeoneering when you complete eight dungeon paths during a single day. It’s one of the more time-consuming dailies, so we can only recommend it to players that have enough playing time to complete all eight paths (you won’t get any partial reward for finishing 6 or 7). On the other hand, there will always be some additional drops from the monsters.  

Daily Fractals – as we already mentioned, each day, you can get extra rewards for completing a fractal from each tier. It adds up to four sets of valuable prizes. However, Fractals can be time-consuming and challenging – especially the higher tier ones.

Tequatl the Sunless – is a Risen World Boss that spawns on Splintered Coast inside the Sparkfly Fen. You can easily take part in the event that requires defeating him. Just remember that Tequatl only spawns a few times a day, so make sure to check the timer online. You can use the LFG (Looking for Group) tool to team up with other players. Every day, the first time that you slay Tequatl the Sunless provides two gold and an additional chest.

Expansions meta events – both expansions combined introduced nine maps to Guild Wars 2. Each of these zones (with one exception) has a special meta event that will give you additional rewards (including a Hero’s Choice Chest) once per day. If you have access to the expansions, you can take your time to go through all of them. The Heart of Thorns maps is: Verdant Brink, Auric Basin, Tangled Depths, and Dragon Stand. In Path of Fire, four of five zones have these meta events – they are Crystal Oasis, Elon Riverland, The Desolation, and Domain of Vabbi. Dragonfall is the only PoF location without a daily meta event.  

Daily Gathering – first of all, you can complete the gathering achievements (Daily Forager, Miner, or Lumberer). Secondly, in the Heart of Maguuma (HoT maps), there are particular types of gathering nodes that can provide valuable materials. However, you can only use them once per day. You can actually get more value if you use multiple characters, even if they’re created on the same account. These nodes always show up in the same spots, so make sure to use a map for the first runs. You’re going to collect Flax, Jungle Plants, Elder Wood, and Mussels. The most lucrative locations are Draconic Mons, Auric Basin, Verdant Brink, Bloodstone Fen, Malchor’s Leap, and Siren’s Landing. A flying mount might be necessary to make the most out of this method and earn gold as quickly as possible.

You can also gather Winterberries in Bitterfrost Frontier, consume them for Unbound Magic and then exchange it for Magic-Warped Bundles in Ember Bay. Dailies will also provide you with some Karma that you can later exchange for sellable items.

Summary

As you can see, there are multiple profitable methods of making gold in Guild Wars 2. Just like in many other online games, a lot of them require logging in every day and completing specific tasks. After all, it’s a great way to give players an incentive to play the game regularly. While dungeons and fractals might not be accessible to all the players, everyone can collect Laurels, complete the daily achievements, and utilize some of the other easy methods of gold farming GW2. Thanks to them, you can get your fair share of gold!

We didn't discuss flipping the market since it's a really difficult and risky method that requires a lot of game knowledge as well as initial capital. Of course, it's possible to make GW2 gold through buying items when they're cheap and then selling them for profit. That thing is, it's not easy to predict what's going to happen with the in-game market and take the right opportunity.

If you’re interested in more than just the daily rewards, you can choose the methods that you can repeat as much as you want. A long session of running fractal after fractal (especially T4 and T3) can generate a lot of gold through the chests and valuable drops. Besides, you can also visit one of the zones with the best meta events to farm – Silverwastes or Dragonfall. Moreover, if you're trying to save up for a specific item, try to limit your in-game spending on ther sutff.

Finally, there’s a way that can allow you to get easy GW2 gold instantly and without any effort! Just sign up and go to Sellers And Friends Guild Wars 2 shop, get all the info you want, and buy as much available gold as you please! You know that you can count on our providers! 

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FAQ

Can you make GW2 gold in PvP?

Yes, it’s possible to earn gold in PvP, but you will only receive it for being successful in ranked PvP. We didn’t include it in the guide since it’s a relatively difficult and inconsistent method that provides overall less gold than the best farming strategies in PvE. 

Can you buy gold in GW2?

You can’t buy gold in the game store, but you can buy Gems and later sell them for gold. You can get even better rates if you purchase gold for a good price from Sellers And Friends!

How to make GW2 gold in Silverwastes?

The Silverwastes farming relies on circling around the map and tagging all the map events in all four forts (Red, Indigo, Blue, and Amber). You can find a more detailed description earlier in this guide. 

Is there a way to farm Black Lion Keys in GW2?

You will receive a Black Lion Key when you hit level 10 on a new character. However, you can only get one key per week on a single account with this method. You may receive some Black Lion Keys from random drops too, but there are no consistent farming methods. You can also buy them for real money in the gem store.