Saturday, November 17, 2012

Lost Shore Weekend - Black Lion Keys

The potential economic shenanigans from the Lost Shore patch are not as spectacular as the recent Halloween event (there's a lot of 'account bound' stuff so far) but the content is amazing. Have you guys ran any fractals? I've never had a better MMO dungeon experience, seriously!

Of course, there are things we can be doing to make money or prepare to make money at a later date (investing in other words) but after a check on what you can buy with fractal relics...

...and a check to see what you can buy with captain's council commendations...

...the most interesting (well, in my opinion) investment I could find involves the upcoming winter holidays event - let me explain!

I don't think Black Lion Chests are dead. At least, I believe they'll be upgraded permanently (or perhaps during certain holiday events) in future. I think that's easier (from a design and community point of view) than phasing them out or removing them. Their contents will once more be intriguing.

Consortium chests are a possible replacement - maybe Arenanet are running a test with these consortium chests - renamed Wintersday Chests; Halloween Chests; or just Holiday Chest but I'm not convinced this is the case. I predict we haven't seen the last of Black Lion Chests.

Interestingly you can get black lion keys through commendations and this opens up another avenue for profit and investment in holiday content (probably the only worthy purchase with commendations at this point in time):

Getting these commendations involves the mystic forge and a new method emerged on reddit a few hours ago - a means to get 2,000 using a jeweller and candy corn amongst other things. 

You create level 80 exotic jewelly and combine 3 with donation packaging. Right now it's the most efficient way to get these commendations in bulk. 

Costs for the materials required for the candy corn orichalcum amulets are on the increase, although 150 candy corn per amulet isn't going to start a rush on corn or make that much of a dent (BUT expect Arenanet to introduce more subtle methods to drain the stocked corn supply like this in future.). 

If you are interested in items that will shoot up - look at the other materials that go into level 80 exotic jeweller recipes. 

Alternatively, if you want to stock keys so that you can open chests during a holiday event at a much cheaper rate (and get a chance at a desirable skin) then this is the way to go. 

Speaking of skins, those introduced with this patch are underwhelming visually - which is why the economy remains a touch unpredictable, but it is early in the event yet!

Tonight and tomorrow - expect this kind of trading post search to show up many, many more results: 

What about you guys - what have you been keeping an eye on so far?


  1. I read a comment on here about investing in orbs (ie ruby, emerald) and thought over it a while but had a bit of gold sitting around so took the plunge...ruby orb @ 5s10c now there 7s50c and also bought alot alot of opal orbs at 2s...they are now 8s :P

    1. tbh it seems like I was just lucky that the opal orbs are now used to get those captain council commendations through the mystic forge recipe

    2. This is the interesting thing about investments - luck plays a part alright but actually taking the step and investing is far more important than your luck.

      The real trick is minimising risk in case you're not as lucky as you could be.

  2. Ancient Bone was a good bet - again a bit of luck

    1. bought 25stacks of ancient bones for 14c/ea. sold them for 21c/ea. i should have waited 2 more days and i would have made hughe prift by selling them for 2s/ea

  3. I made some calculations and by what my numbers said if you buy the amulets ~185 Silver (current buy) it would cost ~556 Silver to get the 2,000 commendations. On the other hand if one was to buy the same number of keys that one can buy with those commendations (7)at the rate of the 5-pack price, using the gold -> gem exchange it would cost around 584 silver for 7. It's not a huge savings but if you are able to buy amulets that low you will save ~4 silver a key. Not great tbh.

    1. Some expensive mats are required for the amulets - and their price is rising. This means the amulets rise too.

      MMO markets always correct imbalances like this - it's what draws me to studying them and trying to work with them :P

  4. Today during the Phase 2 event, just after the new map opened, I noticed every single person in the event zerg mine almost every mithril node. With that many people mining every node across all the servers, the supply of mithril must be huge. So sure enough, the price per ore on the TP was at 20c last time I checked. It might be worth buying up while it's low.

  5. @Thundergore Thanks for all the thought provoking posts, much appreciated.

    Just thought I'd share this one in case you haven't figured it out & I'd love to hear what impact this has on the chest debate.

    It's possible to reverse engineer the Consortium Chests by putting 3 Skins (shoulders or breathing masks) 1 x passion fruit, 1 x passion flower & 1 x Karka Shell.

    I have ended up with a good stack of shells, etc, at the expense of skins. I'm losing gold on it but by getting the skin at approx 13s it's a lot cheaper than the 250 gems on the store.

    Have fun, rinse & repeat.

  6. I just noticed the price of Oricalcum dropping like hell it's around 2s 31c which hasn't been as low in a long time. May be worth buying large stocks and wait till the supply rises again (aprox winter, when new christmas weapons will be introduced).