7 gathering tools, 11 characters, 3 shared slots - what are the options? - SOLVED

So here's the situation:

• I have 2 infinite sickles, 2 infinite axes and 3 infinite pickaxes.
• I don't want to devote more than 3 shared inventory slots to gathering tools.
• I have 11 permanent characters and 0-3 tempoary characters at any given time.
• None of those are parked at farming spots, but most days I pick someone who is in a city to go around the home instance and guild hall nodes.

My current set-up is keep 1 of each tool in a shared slot, equip them on whichever character I'm playing and then put them back when I'm done. This works, but it leaves 4 tools gathering dust in my bank. The only other option I can think of is to pick 1 character to have their own set of tools (and 1 to have a pickaxe) and share the others around but that seems a bit pointless.

Can anyone suggest any other uses so I don't feel like I'm wasting 4 infinite gathering tools?

I would not use three shared inventory slots on gathering tools. Here are three ideas that came into my mind

Variant I - Static

Main Character has one full set.One full set is in the bank, you pick it up with your daily character.Pickaxe in the shared slot.

Variant II - Levelup

Temporary Character has one full set, while it is leveled from 2 to 80. During that phase, you spend a lot of time on that character.One full set in in the bank, you can pick it up with your daily character.Pickaxe in shared slot.

Variant III - Purpose

You have 11 permanent characters and 7 tools in general. So 7 characters are geared with one tool only:

• The sickle characters farm plant nodes with priority and other nodes with a regular tool.
• The axe characters farm tree nodes with priority and other nodes with a regular tool.
• The pickaxe characters farm mineral nodes with priority and other nodes with a regular tool.

Depending on the glyphs you use, you will tend to use specific characters in specific maps/regions. You will also prefer certain paths that lead along those special nodes, giving each character a unique pathing-system. The remaining four characters should could use Karmic Enrichments to promote higher participation in Events instead of gathering. If you are into RP and characters having preferences, this could be a fun thing to experience. If you enjoy all content equally, this may not work out well.

Note for Variant I and Variant II:

The Pickaxe can be used for three different farms:

• Quartz Crystals (Crystal Oasis, Dry Top, Bazaar Docks)
• Iron in Brisban Wildlands (Gallowfields Waypoint)
• Candy Corn in the Labyrinth

That is something you can do with a random char, without much preparation. Just grab any of your characters, and do it. If you feel like it, rotate through all of your characters.

Can anyone suggest any other uses so I don't feel like I'm wasting 4 infinite gathering tools?I never found a satisfying option, especially after ANet allowed us to reskin the tools. I resigned myself to spares that gather dust.

I do like the suggestions from @"HnRkLnXqZ.1870" in general, just not for me personally. I like the efficient amortization they include; they lack the sort of simplicity & utility I look for.

Here are the two scenarios I ended up with in the end.

Original (cheaper):At any given moment, I have one "primary" open-world toon, and one "festival" character. The first is the first to run the new stories and explore, or help others. The other is the one I park in the farming areas of the new festival and/or in whatever zone has a meta I'm repeating.

Fancy (expensive):I splurged on an infinite bank access, which goes into the first shared inventory slot; a set of "spare" tools fits into the first three bank slots. (One extra double-click to swap tools, compared to the "cheap" option.)

So yes, this is kind of a "cut off one's nose to spite the face" option: to avoid "wasting" 2400-3000 gems worth of tools (~900-1100 gold these days, less when I bought) by spending 2500 gold (closer to 4000 gold today).

However, the permanent bank access has been one of the top three (convenience) game changers since launch, up there with Wardrobe, "true" autolooting, and the shared inventory slots. It's a lot easier to avoid running out of inventory space, and it's much less trouble to regear. I also always have the right food(s) for the encounter, regardless of which character I've brought, which is exceptionally useful for group content.

I crafted a legendary to afford the cost; worth every copper. (Your mileage will vary, of course.)

One set in Shared slots works best for me personally. I have another full set of infinite tools on my "casual activities" main. I'll hop on her to run through maps for harvesting and some quick dailies while I have something playing on TV. It saves the little bit of worry about forgetting to re-equip them into the Shared slots.

For that last spare pickaxe, as HnRkLnXqZ.1870 suggested if you can spare a character to sit at a permanent rich node, you can hop on once a day for a bit of bonus mats. Rich Quartz Node in Crystal Oasis is one of the better ones imo due to the Devs constantly giving us things to craft with Charged Quartz. And because there's no running around required -- log in, spend a minute mining, deposit and log back out. That node is also nice because if you ever move the character, it's not too hard to get them back to it later.

My extras gather dust in the hopes of someday something happening with them. I have 4 that I use via the shared slots, the fourth being a volatile magic glyph that I swap in when needed.

I dont think any juggling will make you not feel like you wasted 4 tools mate.This is way I only bought 3 even tho I been tempted by some of the glyphs in later released tools.

Do your infinite gathering tools have boosts; e.g., unbound magic or chance to drop leather?How are your home instance nodes doing? I regularly harvest everything in a home and in a guild using a dedicated toon.

My shared inventory slots include a salvage-o-matic, UI gear stacks, lounge pass, event alert items, instant travel and other things

Thanks for all the suggestions. :)

Part of the problem is I have no intention of setting up a dedicated farming routine, beyond usually gathering from the nodes in my home instance and guild hall. I don't get a lot of time to play each day and farming nodes isn't something I find interesting. I'll often gather nodes as I'm passing, but I don't want to devote more time just to that activity. So setting a character up with tools and devoting them to farming doesn't work for me. I'm also not keen on a complicated system where I have to remember who has which tools and what nodes they're supposed to focus on. I got infinite tools originally to avoid that problem.

Having two sets in use might reduce the amount of times I realise I didn't put them back and have to go and find them, especially if one set is kept by whichever character I'm currently playing most. But it sounds like beyond that there's not a lot I can do with them.

I have a friend that does the following. His characters are color coded. He looked at the karma gathering tools and bought sets that match the colors. As he runs a character he swaps out the infinite tools for the color coded tools. That way, if the infinite tools are not returned, he can tell at a glance who has has them.
Note, while this makes sense it is too complex for my chaotic play style. I would rather focus on important things, like finally getting Mawdrey II so I can start putting a dent on the 30,000+ bloodstone I have in my bank and on mules.

I hope it's ok to bump this up. I finally decided what to do with the spare tools: I'm giving them to my charr thief as he's the one character I use frequently where the flutes look really, absurdly out of place. He's also currently in charge of doing dailies and so one of the ones I'm highly likely to leave holding tools by accident.

So I'm putting different skins on those tools and making them his permanent set, then everyone else will share the flutes. Which does still leave a spare pickaxe in the bank but that's been there for years and at this point I'm not as bothered by it.