Every group consists of one Mantis Hunter
and one Dreamweaver or Stormcaller. None
of these foes can remove enchantments or
interrupt non-spells, so you can plan your
build without having to worry about being
countered. Further into the area you may
also encounter Mantis Menders as the second
mantis in a group, but you need not bother
fighting them unless you feel like it. They are
monks, and they tend to slow the farming
down with their pesky healing. For the most
part the kills come easily, and the gold drops
make them worthwhile.
By the way, if you get into trouble
while fighting here, you can always run to
the resurrection shrine, where the priest will
heal you or possibly even cast Protective
Spirit on you. This can be a good way to
recover quickly from a bad fight, particularly
if your skill lineup includes the mesmer’s
Illusion of Weakness or some other selfdamaging
but important skill.
Wardens in Arborstone (up to 2.5k gold
per hour solo, plus tanned hide squares)
To get to this farming spot, enter
Tanglewood Copse from Arborstone and
walk straight ahead until you encounter
groups of Warden enemies.
W/Mo, A/Mo or R/Anything builds with
plenty of healing and lots of attack-avoiding
skills will do well here, and the Spiteful Spirit
hex can really cause some damage in the
tightly clustered groups of foes that appear
here. Basically, though, the following three
things are essential to farming here
effectively:
- A way to stay alive in spite of being
continually attacked by a mixed
group of four to five foes, including
warriors, rangers, and ritualists.
Since these enemies deal most of their
damage using physical attacks, any
stance or enchantment that adds
blocking or evading will come in
handy here. Along with this, some
form of self healing will be necessary
if you plan to go far beyond the
entrance.
- A way to deal spike damage without
being knocked down by Counter
Blow and Devastating Hammer from
the Warden of the Spring enemies.
The aforementioned evade/block
enchantments or stances work very
well to keep these hammer attacks
from landing; Balanced Stance can
also help. As for spiking, skill sets
with plenty of damage and some way
to cause a deep wound are ideal.
Axes, swords, and daggers can all
work well here. Hammers work well
for spiking groups with only one
healer and get a boost from the
Brambles and Laceration spirits the
Warden of the Leaf enemies like to
cast and can be the best choice for
that reason. Rangers should Barrage
and/or send a pet.
- A way to kill groups of enemies in
spite of them having two healers
(Warden of the Summer). Scourge
Healing works very well for this
purpose if you can spare some
attribute points for it, as does
anything else that punishes
spellcasting. Also, when faced with
multiple healers, remember that their
main healing spell is Spirit Light,
which will cause a 10% health
sacrifice if they have no spirits near
them.
The good news is once you get a good
killing session started here there really aren’t
many surprises. Most groups of Wardens
will be exactly the same as the previous one,
without requiring you to change strategies
on the fly. Drops include some gold (less
than for the mantises above, which makes
sense because the foes here are of a lower
level), some crafting materials, and some
weapons.
While you’re getting used to fighting
here, you can always pull foes back near the
Kurzick Priest at the resurrection shrine for
free healing and Protective Spirit.
This region, home to the Kurzick faction,
offers delightful opportunities for farming
large amounts of gold, although crafting
materials do not drop as often here as in
comparable Prophecies farming spots. Check
out the two locations below during those
times when you’re waiting for your friends
to get online to start Alliance Battling, or
actively farm them anytime to gather cash
for new skills or that Canthan 15k set.
Note that in order to be able to use the
resurrection shrines in the following two
farming spots, you’ll need to be on Kurzick
faction. If you’re a Luxon instead and like to
have a shrine available while farming, check
out the “Pongmei Valley Rot Wallows” spot
above. The tactics and payoff for it are very
similar to what can be found in the areas
below. Note that you do not have to be on
the appropriate faction in order for the priest
standing at the shrine to heal you; he will do
that regardless.
Mantises in Melandru’s Hope (up to 4k
per hour soloing, easy but varied foes)
To get to this spot easily, enter
Melandru’s Hope from Lutgardis
Conservatory and head a short distance out
the gate. You should see a large number of
mantis enemies roaming the area in groups
of two. Each of these mantises has a high
chance of dropping ~100 gold or an item of
comparable value, and there are plenty
around for you to kill. With the right
strategy for your profession, cleaning them
out should not take long at all. If possible,
you build for farming here should include a
way to render assassins useless (blind, for
example), hexes that punish foes for
attacking, continuous healing (even rank 8
Mending works well here), and quick hex
removal. Being able to interrupt spells or
deal large amounts of physical damage is
also a plus, since you’ll be dealing with a few
foes who cast Obsidian Flesh to make
themselves invulnerable to magic.
The three main types of mantises
you’ll encounter, as well as strategies for
dealing with each, are listed below:
Mantis Hunter – assassin with
Locust’s Fury, Jungle Strike, Twisting
Fangs, and Shadow Refuge. (Blind it
and kill it quickly. Most professions
should kill Hunters first instead of
targeting a caster. Hexes like
Empathy, Insidious Parasite, and
Spiteful Spirit will tear Hunters to
pieces. Try to spike them down when
they get low enough to use Shadow
Refuge.)
Mantis Dreamweaver – mesmer with
Conjure Nightmare, Fragility,
Crippling Anguish, and Accumulated
Pain. (If you keep it from putting
more than one hex on you at a time,
Accumulated Pain won’t be able to
inflict a Deep Wound. Prevent
Conjure Nightmare or remove it as
soon as it lands on you, then kill the
caster, removing other hexes when
possible. Necromancers can let the
Deep Wound happen and then
transfer it to an opponent for a faster
kill.)
Mantis Stormcaller – elementalist
with Ash Blast, Crystal Wave,
Maelstrom, and Obsidian Flesh. (If
you see that it’s about to use
Maelstrom or Crystal Wave, just
move to avoid it, or interrupt.
Otherwise, just cast on it until it uses
Obsidian Flesh and then pound it to
death. Or just pound it to death from
the start.)
Accept Kai Ying’s quest and hit the
enemy elementalists with Fire Storm
and Flare to kill them.
? Talk to Kai Ying again (100g, 1
monastery credit).
? Map travel to Shing Jea Monastery.
Run to Linnok Courtyard.
? Talk to Togo (50g) and accept the
ritualist quest from him.
? Return to Shing Jea and talk to
Headmaster Quin. Get the quest from
him.
? Exit to Sunqua Vale and talk to
Master Gai (10g).
? Talk to Gai again to get his quest, and
again to actually start it. Use Flare on
the undead as they spawn.
? Talk to Gai (50g) and get another
quest from him.
? Map to Shing Jea and talk to Captain
Zinghu and Neing the Tanner to
receive two additional quests.
? Map to Tsumei. Talk to Sister Choi Ju
to update the naga quest, and enter
Sunqua Vale.
? Go to the waterfall area ("Appearance
of the Naga"), watch for a quest
update, and start killing the nagas
beyond the point at which it happens.
Use Armor of Earth to help endure
the spells from the last group of them.
? Once the naga quest updates to show
that you’re ready to collect your
reward, map to Tsumei and enter
Panjiang Peninsula.
? Talk to Herder Tsiyingju ("A Belt
Pouch") and defeat the Crimson Skulls
nearby. Then talk to Herder Tsiyingju
again for a quest update.
? Talk to Ang the Ephemeral ("Track
Down Ang the Ephemeral") and
complete that quest (50g).
? Do Ang’s quest, opening each of the
five boxes in turn and defeating the
spirits inside. Talk to Ang (50g, 1
monastery credit).
? Map to Shing Jea. Talk to Neing the
Tanner (75g and a belt pouch) and
Captain Zinghu (75g, 1 monastery
credit).
? Enter Linnok Courtyar and talk to
Master Togo (50g).
? Talk to Togo again and choose
Ritualist as your secondary
profession, and talk to him again to
complete the quest (250g, 1
monastery credit). Don’t bother
requesting the "A Formal
Introduction" quest.
? Return to Shing Jea. Talk to the
Monastery Quartermaster who offers
1 Scroll of Adventurer’s Insight in
exchange for 1 Monastery Credit. Do
this trade until you’re out of credits.
? Map to Tsumei (because merchant
and storage NPCs are more
conveniently located there).
? Sell the five scrolls to a merchant,
along with the belt pouch and any
dropped items you got (505g plus a
few gold from dropped items).
? Talk to the Xunlai Agent to open a
storage account (costs 50g). Deposit
1 platinum and 405g (plus change)
into your storage account for use by
your "real" character(s).
? Delete this character and make
another one to do the quest cycle
again, or see the paragraph below for
a way to get some more gold out of
this one.
If you so choose, you might also go back to
Headmaster Vhang and complete the five
insignia training exercises (50g each) and
the insignia quest itself (75g and another
Monastery Credit). All told, this process
yields 425 additional gold and takes about
10-15 minutes if done correctly, bringing
the total gold acquired for sure to 1 platinum
830g. If you succeed at each trial without
having to retry, this is a little more timeefficient
than restarting as soon as you get
your second profession. Things occasionally
can go wrong when doing these tasks,
however, so the choice is largely a matter of
preference. Here are some efficient ways to
beat each trial:
? For the defense and condition trials,
just put your points into Restoration
Magic, cast Generous Was Tsungrai,
drop the ashes when the spell has
recharged, and cast it again until two
minutes have elapsed, causing you to
win. Defeating the attackers by
reducing their HP is quite possible as
an E/Rt, but it is risky to do so without
investing in better armor first, and
that would be counterproductive
here, so waiting for the timer is the
best option.
? For skill chaining, put most of your
points into Fire Magic and a few into
Restoration Magic. Use Flare
repeatedly to defeat Panaku first, let
your energy recharge, and then take
down the ranger with Vengeful
Weapon and Flare. Use Generous
Was Tsungrai and Vengeful Weapon
for healing.
? For the disruption trial, use the Fire
Magic Restoration setup. When the
fight starts, fight conservatively until
the enemy elementalist casts Deep
Freeze. Then use Flare and Vengeful
Weapon as rapidly as possible to
finish him before he can cast again to
regain health.
? To win the snaring trial, use Glyph of
Lesser Energy Deep Freeze and then
cast Flare repeatedly; use Vengeful
Weapon as necessary to keep your
health up when the ranger turns to
shoot. Alternatively, put your points
into Communing and Channeling,
and make a spirit of Pain next to the
door through which Zho will flee. As
the battle starts, hex her with Painful
Bond and then use Glyph of Lesser
Energy Deep Freeze to slow her
movement to a crawl while the spirit
damages her severely. She should
yield quickly.
Whether you’re grouping or soloing,
reaching Xuekao will require that you defeat
or outrun three sets of enemies: a single
warrior just to the east of the entrance from
Maatu Keep, another single warrior near
him, and a warrior plus a caster near the
building up the hill further to the east. You
also might aggro another single warrior next
to Xuekao’s building, but that foe can be
avoided by hugging the wall. Xuekao
himself is alone and only uses melee attacks.
His attacks are deadly, but bring something
that can shut down a melee attacker (blind,
for example), plus some effective damaging
skills, and he’s as good as dead. His daggers
are somewhat rare, so you’ll need to keep
returning to kill him until he actually drops
them.
Drop rate and changing market value of
the daggers are the main variables in how
much money you’ll be able to make farming
this spot. Also, be aware that since Guild
Wars has anti-farming code in place, you’ll
find Xuekao’s drop rates greatly reduced if
you return more than ten times in a row (or
so) without spending some time offline or in
a different area. In other words, farming
him for hours at a time isn’t very efficient,
but doing so in short bursts is very profitable
indeed.
Pongmei Valley Rot Wallows (up to 4k per
hour solo, easy mobs, 1-2 at a time)
This location works especially well for
players on the Luxon faction because it
makes resurrecting at the nearby shrine
convenient in the event of a death, but it can
work for anyone. The simplest way to get
here is to map travel to Boreas Seabed and
exit west into Pongmei Valley.
Your main targets here are the Rot
Wallows, level 24 necromancers with a very
limited arsenal of spells and no especially
dire hexes. Their skills include Weaken
Knees, Fetid Ground, Jaundiced Gaze, and
Vampiric Bite, and you will usually see them
cast them in that order. They usually come
single or in pairs when pulled, although you
may need to run around a bit with the larger
groups in order to split them up. If you ever
get in trouble, you can run to the generously
placed Luxon Priest, who will cast Word of
Healing and other goodies on you to keep
you alive, even if you are a Kurzick. The
wallows drop around 100 gold when killed,
or an item of similar value. Weapon drops
are common, so this can also be a good place
for unlocking weapon upgrades or farming
them for selling to other players.
If Mesmer is one of your professions, you
can have a blast here by putting a lot of
points in Domination Magic. Activate the
Hex Breaker stance, then initiate combat by
casting Backfire on one of the wallows.
While it blows itself up by casting its first
three spells, throw on another hex and
Accumulated Pain (or better yet, Phantom
Pain Shatter Delusions) and watch as your
target manages to die in less than ten
seconds. In the event that something goes
wrong with the combo, a hex like Empathy
can help finish the job once the wallow
closes to melee range. Necromancers can
pull off similar fun with Spiteful Spirit and
Insidious Parasite.
The only other two mob types you will
encounter in this part of the valley are the
Isle Guardians (level 28 smite monks) and
Yetis (level 24 ritualists with a very weak
skillset). Defeating the yetis is basically as
simple as casting an attack-punishing hex
(like Empathy) and watching them kill
themselves. Isle Guardians require more
thinking, since they will use Signet of
Judgment to knock you down and interrupt
you, and Spear of Light to deal heavy damage
if you try to attack them directly. On top of
that, they can cast Healing Breeze to recover
health. Backfire will help against them as
well; just be sure it doesn’t get interrupted by
Signet of Judgment. Likewise, anything you
can do to interrupt their own abilities will
make the fight easier.
Once you have cleared out the first few
clusters of Rot Wallows, and any Isle
Guardians and Yetis supporting them, map
travel back to your merchant of choice to sell
your loot.
Making the Most of Imperial
Commendations
If you decide to gain extra experience
for your character by doing the dozens of
quests in Kaineng City, you gradually will
acquire a large stock of Imperial
Commendations. Like the Monastery Credits
earned by native Canthan characters on
Shing Jea Island, you can turn these
commendations in to Imperial
Quartermasters in Kaineng Center for a
variety of useful and sellable items. To make
as much money as possible from this feature,
find the Imperial Quartermaster who offers
to trade one Superior Salvage Kit for 5
commendations. These kits sell to merchants
for a platinum, or 1000g, and offer the most
gold value per commendation. This is a
handy way to pick up 3-4k of extra money
late in the campaign when the cost of paying
for additional skills at trainers becomes a
burden.
Farming Daggers of Xuekao: Up to
15k/hour Grouped (~5k/member), or
Soloable
Placing this farming spot under Kaineng
City may sound like an error, but it’s placed
here because the outpost you’ll be using
(Maatu Keep) is technically part of Kaineng.
Your target is Xuekao, a level 24 assassin
boss in a building in the northeast part of
Pongmei Valley, who drops the following
green (unique) item:
Daggers of Xuekao:
7-17 piercing damage (requires 9 Dagger
Mastery), damage 15% (while enchanted)
20% armor penetration (20% chance);
Enchantments last 20% longer
These daggers are very popular weapons
among A/Mo characters and are selling for
about 15k each at the time of this writing.
Given the massive supply of assassin roleplaying
characters Factions has generated,
these daggers should continue to sell well in
future months. The ease of farming them,
however, could easily be nerfed by adding
more enemies to the area involved, so using
this method soon is highly recommended.
The ideal setup for farming Xuekao is in a
small (2-3 member) group of friends or
guild mates. In this case, have one person
bring a blinding skill or other anti-melee
skill while the other(s) deal damage, or just
bring a tanking warrior and a healing monk
or ritualist. In any case, with a few people in
the group, each Xuekao run only takes 2-3
minutes, especially if everyone carries a
movement speed boost. Once your group
actually gets the daggers from him, one of
you can sell it via the trade channel in a large
city like Kaineng Center. If you’re in a
smaller guild looking for ways to gather cash
for buying a Guild Hall or merchants for the
hall, this setup works especially well, since
all of the money will be going to the same
cause. Otherwise, you can split the proceeds
from the sale.
Soloing Xuekao takes 8-12 minutes per
run for most professions, mainly because
you’ll have to divide your attributes and skills
among ways to keep Xuekao from hurting
you and ways to hurt him in return.
Bringing a skill that can interrupt spells can
also help, since Xuekao will cast Shadow
Refuge to heal himself when he gets low.
Casters who have mesmer as one of their
classes and access to the Prophecies
campaign can use Spirit of Failure Mantra of
Inscriptions Signet of Midnight [Elite] with
Inspiration Magic at around rank 11 to
generate an infinite supply of energy and
keep Xuekao blinded for the entire fight (the
mantra is needed to make the signet recharge
fast enough to keep him permanently
blinded, since bosses recover quicker than
normal from hexes and conditions). Meleepunishing
hexes like the necromancer’s
Spiteful Spirit [Elite] or Insidious Parasite, or
the mesmer’s Empathy, Clumsiness, and
Images of Remorse all work very well against
him. Warriors can specialize Tactics and
Sword Mastery and use Riposte, Deadly
Riposte, Gladiator’s Defense [Elite], and/or
“Shields Up!” to protect themselves while
hurting Xuekao in return.
Making the Most of Monastery Credits
Many of the quests on Shing Jea
Island give a Monastery Credit item as part
of the reward for completing them. You’ll
end up with over 20 of these credits if you
complete every possible quest in the region.
To redeem these credits for items you can
use, or sell, talk to a Monastery
Quartermaster in Shing Jea Monastery or
Seitung Harbor; the ones in Shing Jea mainly
give basic items like kits and bags, while the
ones at Seitung give weapons with good
(though not maxed) damage and modifiers.
If you want to use your Monastery
Eredits efficiently, just exchange each of
them for a Scroll of Adventurer’s Insight and
sell it for 100g. In general, this provides the
most gold value per credit. If you need an
Expert Salvage Kit or Rune of Holding to use,
it is more efficient to trade 3 credits for that
item than to buy it with the gold you would
make from exchanging those credits for
sellable scrolls.
See the tip below for a money-making
method that turns monastery credits into a
significant source of gold income.
Efficient Newbie Questing: 2k per hour,
No Initial Investment
Characters for the Factions campaign
certainly have an easier time making money
early on than do their Prophecies
counterparts. Simply put, Shing Jea Island is
the home of what might be the game’s
easiest way to make large sums of money,
legitimately, in a short period of time.
Startlingly enough, this method is available
to level one Factions characters, fresh from
the monastery overlook. Whether you’ve just
started playing Guild Wars with the release
of Factions or are a veteran looking for a
quick way to generate funds for your new
Canthan characters, this method should
serve you well. As with most easy goldmaking
methods, this will probably be nerfed
in the future, but for now it’s yours to use as
you see fit.
Once you become proficient at this
method, you’ll be making about 2k per hour
using characters that require no cash
investment besides the 50 gold to activate
their storage accounts. The idea here is
simple: since nearly all of the Factions quests
for new characters offer gold as part of their
rewards, just keep making new characters,
doing those quests, and depositing the gold
from them into storage, which is shared
among all of your account’s characters.
You’ll rarely need to worry about a bad pull
ruining your farm, and you’ll never need
another player to help you, though you’ll
want a full party of henchmen while you do
this.
The walkthrough for this method uses a
primary elementalist for one major reason:
the initial series quests for that profession
will send you through Tsumei Village and
into Panjiang Peninsula, and not to Kinya
Province. The path to Kinya Province
requires fighting some aggressive creatures
and is time-consuming; Panjiang, on the
other hand, requires no fighting at all and
has a handy outpost next to it for map travel.
The secondary class chosen for this
walkthrough is ritualist because its
qualifying quest also uses Panjiang Peninsula.
Other combinations of professions will
provide the same amount of gold from quest
rewards, but this combination provides those
rewards faster than most.
Also, making money with this method
hinges upon trading in your Monastery
Tokens (rewards for some of the quests) in
exchange for Scrolls of Adventurer’s Insight,
each of which is worth 100g when sold to a
merchant. To do this, travel to Shing Jea
Monastery and talk to a Monastery
Quartermaster. One of them will offer the
trade that you seek.
Walkthrough:
Create a new Factions-campaign
elementalist. Name him or her
something that will be amusing to
read while you run. 
As you level, put your attribute points
into Fire Magic and the leftovers into
Energy Storage unless otherwise
noted.
Move past Master Togo and talk to
Ludo to get his quest. Choose to enter
the monastery.
Talk to Headmaster Vhang to
complete the quest (20g). Get his
next quest.
Run to the gate and talk to Ludo for
another quest.
Add Taya, Aeson, and Lukas
(henchmen) to your party.
Enter Sunqua vale and talk to Ludo.
(10g, 1 monastery credit)
Run west to Ronsu and talk to him
(10g).
Do Ronsu’s quest: go southwest,
defeat Huan (use Armor of Earth and
Aura of Restoration before using your
offensive spells on him), take the
stone, and return to Ronsu (50g).
Accept Ronsu’s other quest and run to
Tsumei Village, and through it to
Panjiang
Peninsula.
Ignore the farmer and crimson skull
conversation and run to Kai Ying
(50g).
uild Wars: Factions brings with it
a variety of new areas in which
players can adventure and
accumulate in-game wealth. This section is
devoted to describing the best of those
locations and offers methods for getting the
most gold in the shortest time out of them.
This final region of the Guild Wars:
Prophecies storyline is full of tough enemies
and good loot. This is a high risk, high
reward region, typically best suited to
farming by small, arranged groups of friends
or guild mates who are all saving money for
the same objective (such as a sigil for a Guild Hall).
Farming Spot: Perdition Rock – flesh
golems and others
If you enter Perdition Rock from Ember
Light Camp and keep to the right, avoiding
the Mahgo Hydras, you will quickly begin to
see clusters of Flesh Golems. These
necromancer mobs can drop upwards of
100g each, as well as high quality loot. If
you can kill them, these mobs provide one of
the best sources of raw gold in the entire game.
With that said, solo farming these hardhitting,
level 24 mobs is extremely difficult,
even with exactly the right build. This was
not always the case, but an update in recent
months caused the flesh golems to deal much
more damage with their attacks. As it stands,
domination mesmers, and smite monks to a
lesser degree, have the best chances of
farming this area successfully. A far more
reasonable option for farming here is to
bring along a human friend or two.
Here are some tips you should know
before fighting these golems:
Don’t bother using enchantments.
The golems love to cast Lingering
Curse, which will remove all
enchantments from you as part of its effect.
Defensive stances like the mesmer’s
Distortion can be extremely helpful
here. The golems love to cast hexes,
but they deal most of their damage in melee.
In spite of what their appearance
might suggest, these golems only take
normal damage from holy attacks.
Some groups of golems are
accompanied by Phantoms, mesmer
mobs that will assist when you aggro
their respective golems. These mobs
love to use interruption abilities and
Drain Enchantment. Also, the
phantoms do take double damage
from holy attacks.
How to deal damage – domination
mesmers should enter the mission
with Shatter Hex and Echo (or Arcane
Echo) equipped. Smite monks should
likewise bring Smite Hex. The basic
tactic here is to damage the golems
and phantoms by removing the hexes
they cast. The mesmer’s Chaos Storm
and monk’s Symbol of Wrath can be
used to increase damage output, since
neither is based on an enchantment.
Finally, here is the checklist for farming here:
Head to the right from the entrance,
avoiding any Mahgo hydras in the area.
Engage the first group of flesh golems.
Be sure you’re standing next to the
Phantom. Use a few slow-casting
spells to prompt it to waste its
interrupts, and then begin using
Shatter/Smite Hex as much as
possible. Monks may also want to
target the phantom and Banish/Smite
it to get it out of the way early.
Loot up and regen.
The next few groups of golems are
without phantom sidekicks, so just
focus on breaking those hexes.
If you make it to the drakes further
along in the area, congratulations;
they are much easier to defeat
Keep killing until you die or run out
of mobs; then, return to town and sell.
If you are skilled at micromanaging your
character’s movements, you might also try
solo farming the Mahgo hyrdras in this area.
They use many area of effect nukes, most of
which can be avoided by running in a wide
circle around the hydra. “Meteor Shower” is
one of their favorites and is very easy to
dodge, since the rocks begin falling for a few
seconds before they deal damage. Among
casters, degeneration mesmers and
necromancers have an advantage against
these mobs, as do elementalists with skill sets
designed to deal heavy damage quickly to
one target (most aeromancers fit in this
category). Warriors who don’t mind lots of
running around can also do quite well
against the hydras.
These extra zones can only be
accessed when your region of the world has
“the favor of the gods” (i.e., your region has
control of the Hall of Heroes); to see who has
favor, just zone into the Temple of the Ages
and check the green text that appears in your
chat area. If your region has favor, the
statues of the old gods in the area will be
glowing with power, and NPCs representing
them will be standing nearby. The “Voice of
Grenth” offers passage to the Underworld,
while the “Champion of Balthazar” will take
your group to Fissure of Woe. Besides the
favor requirement, the NPCs will prevent
your group from entering a favor zone if
anyone in the group isn’t Ascended; this also
means no henchmen can come along. In
addition, the group leader must pay 1
platinum just for the group to be able to
enter the zone. Naturally, this cost is usually
split among the eight group members, so that
each pays 125g.
Both of the bonus dungeons are
excellent places to rake in large amounts of
experience and gold. Indeed, if you can
gather group of friends who want to farm
these zones as a team, any money problems
you might still have will soon be solved.
Several crafting materials used in making the
variety of “15k armor” that comes from the
Fissure of Woe forge can only drop in these
two zones. These materials, such as “Glob of
Ectoplasm” and “Obsidian Shard,” sell for
enormous sums to players interested in
crafting that armor; at the time of this
writing, ectoplasms commonly sell for
upwards of 3k each. Besides the materials,
powerful weapons with unique graphics also
drop here and often sell well to players who
want to look as stylish as possible.
There are many different group
setups that can work well in these zones. The
“standard” group setup here includes a
healing monk, a protect monk, a third monk
or other support caster, one or two primary
warriors, and the rest damage dealers. An
alternative method is to bring a large
number of area-effect casters and/or
trapping rangers in order to kill whole sets of
enemies in a matter of seconds. These killor-
be-killed groups can be fun and efficient
if played correctly, though they often require
more skill and teamwork than the standard setup.
These zones play out like open-ended
missions, complete with many highlyrewarding
in-zone quests. The important
thing to remember here is that if your entire
group dies or you fail one of the in-zone
quests, you’ll be kicked out to the Temple of
Ages. At least one member of your group
with a spell-based resurrection skill
(“Rebirth” is a good one for this purpose)
should be designated to flee from battles
when the group is losing badly, in order to
survive and resurrect the rest of the group.
The loot from all mob types here is
excellent, so feel free to roam, complete
quests, and attack whatever strikes your
group’s fancy. You’ll face a variety of mobs,
but they tend to appear in groups that are all
the same class, so you should face few
surprises once battles actually start. If you’re
doing this with friends, consider visiting both
zones a time or two and then designating a
specific farming path that works well with
your group’s character builds, since this will
make your farming even more effective.
This large region contains a few of the
game’s most effective solo farming spots. As
you take on the three missions leading up to
the final Ascension trial, keep you eyes open
for the following money-making locations:
Farming Spot: Diviner’s Ascent (the area
just outside Elona Reach) – sand drakes
This is a very simple farming spot that
is excellent for character builds that can deal
large amounts of damage to a single target.
At maximum, you’ll be fighting three mobs at
a time here, and only one or two most of the
time. The primary drop here is gold; the
drakes drop 80 gold at a time and can also
drop Topaz Crests, a collector item that sells
for 25 gold or normal salvages to ~5 scales.
The sand drakes (level 21) are earth magic
specialists, so plan accordingly. Here’s a
quick walkthrough:
Enter Diviner’s Ascent from the Elona
Reach mission area.
Kill the 1-2 drake(s) wandering
around a short distance ahead.
Move forward, avoiding the group of
devourers on your left, but without
getting close to the right wall.
Kill the lone devourer that rises from
the sands to attack.
Move forward and right, killing the
nearby drakes.
Head north, killing more drakes, until
you reach the northern edge of the
area.
Head east and then south, killing
drake groups.
Head east into a small valley and you
should see a wreckage; loot it.
Kill the rest of the nearby drakes and
head back to town.
Farming Spot: “Elona Reach” mission –
minotaurs and dune burrowers
This farming spot caters to characters
that specialize in dealing heavy long-range
damage, such as rangers, elementalists, and
degeneration necromancers or mesmers.
Primary warriors can also do well here
because most of the mobs aren’t very good at
dealing damage.
The starting area of this mission contains
some of the easiest level 20 mobs in the game
(minotaurs), as well as some level 21,
immobile ranged attackers (dune burrowers)
whose only healing ability is Healing Spring,
a ranger skill that can be disrupted by a
regular attack. All attacks the enemies here
use are physical, so skills like the mesmer’s
Physical Resistance stance are very helpful.
Simply clearing the most convenient groups
of these creatures can yield 200-300g per
ten minutes while also giving good
experience.
When farming here, take care to
avoid the splinter mines scattered around the
area. If you step near one, move away
quickly, or else you will soon be hit by a trap
that cripples and causes lengthy bleeding.
On the other hand, you can also use these
mines to your advantage. If a group of
minotaurs chasing you gets hit by a mine’s
trap, they will be afflicted with those same
conditions. If you prefer, you can run up to a
mine, grab it, and hopefully run away before
its plant catches you with that nasty trap.
When you drop such a mine, it will shake
briefly and then explode, inflicting the trap’s
usual conditions on foes within the blast
radius.
Here is a sample checklist for farming
this mission:
Talk to the ghostly priest.
Drop the Vision Crystal.
Move forward (avoiding the splinter
mine) and kill the two minotaurs
there.
Head to the right to find two dune
burrowers. Kill them. Consider using
the small hill next to them as cover
while you pelt them with ranged
attacks.
Go through the valley the two
burrowers were guarding and kill the
lone minotaur there.
Retrace your steps and begin killing
any other convenient groups of two
minotaurs.
Kill the lone dune burrower to the left
from the entrance.
If you want to have some fun with the
splinter mines, use them to help you
defeat the group of 3-4 minotaurs
that populates the valley leading to
the main part of the mission.
Return to town and sell.