Quick question (or two...or three) about the Home Instance resource nodes

I'm thinking of buying the resource nodes that are offered at the season 3/4 map vendors and I have the following questions...

1. How many resource units do you get when you harvest these nodes?
2. Where are these nodes located in your Home Instance...are they in one localized area, or are they spread out all over the map?
3. Can I have these resource nodes in the Home Instances of all my characters?

Mind you, I'm not entirely sold on the idea of getting these nodes, mostly because they cost 10,000 unbound magic and 50 gold each to buy them...which would be an absurdly high price to pay for 1-2 units per day.

1. You get 3 of the map currency units per node with the exception of the winterberry node, which gives 5, and the orrian oyster node, which gives 9. They also drop empyreal fragments, bloodstone dust, or dragonite ore, and either unbound or volatile magic.

2. They're spread out in various places.

3. Any of your characters will have access to the nodes in any of the racial city home instances, but you will only be able to use them with one character per day.

As with other home nodes, they will take quite a bit of time to pay for themselves, but if you want to passively accumulate the currencies over time and go back to those maps from time to time to pick up more of the rewards, instead of focusing on grinding out everything you can do on a given map, they work very nicely for that purpose.

@"Taelac.7036" said:As with other home nodes, they will take quite a bit of time to pay for themselves,It takes years before the nodes pay for themselves. The special currency alone takes 5-7 months to break even. For example, this story's node costs 10k Volatile Magic and you get roughly 18 VM per Branded Mass, something like 55/day per home instance, or about 6 months to break even just on the seasonal currency costs.

The 50 gold cost takes much much longer.

Instead, they offer a reverse exchange from "Seasonal Currency" (i.e. LS3's Unbound Magic & LS4's Volatile Magic) to "Story-specific Materials" (e.g. LS3.3's Winterberry's or LS4.5's Branded Masses). So in effect, this allows you to take excess currency accumulated early in the season and use it to accelerate how quickly you gather up the material for the latest story.

So if you've been playing since LS4.1, you current have extra volatile magic but not enough Branded Masses for your gathering needs. Buying the node now (early in the story) gives you a big head start on accumulating the mats.

I recently got the bloodstone ruby node, because I want several bloodstone trinkets (I have 11 characters, and ones where I can change the stats when needed are preferable) but I don't enjoy farming Bloodstone Fen (or farming anything really) and I can only rarely get myself to do it. But I am pretty good about gathering from my Home Instance on days when I can log in.

So I decided getting blood rubies slowly is better than not getting them at all, and bought the node. (I also have an unbound glyph in one of my tools so I get the magic indirectly too.)

@Taelac.7036 @Illconceived Was Na.9781 @Danikat.8537 Thanks, guy's! Ultimately, for me at least, getting these nodes doesn't make sense...the cost is way to high, for very little in return. My four main characters are already outfitted with a full set of Ascended trinkets, and I have enough of the various map currencies to outfit two other characters in the future. This coupled with the fact that I don't mind farming these maps, with the exception of Bloodstone Fen, means that I'll always have enough Unbound/Volatile Magic to keep my Obsidian Shard supplies topped-up forever. :)

About node value:These nodes don't really pay for themselves unless you have friends, then they can pay for themselves over the course of months insteads of years. My small guild harvests my home instance everyday, and as a result, up to 20-25g of materials is generated per day from it, not to count unbound or volatile magic, so it really depends on whether you're going to be harvesting it solo or with friends or guildmates.

Rather than buying them yourself, it may be best for the average player to join others offering invites to their home nodes. I often see players announcing in guild chat and map/town chat.

@BlueJin.4127 said:Rather than buying them yourself, it may be best for the average player to join others offering invites to their home nodes. I often see players announcing in guild chat and map/town chat.

Leeching a home instance pays for itself before you even start ;)

The main downside is that requires depending on the kindness of strangers, but some players (especially Blanche) dig that.Nearly all the guilds with which I'm familiar have at least 2-3 people who regularly offer their instances (whether they have finished clearing or not).

@Hannelore.8153 said:About node value:These nodes don't really pay for themselves unless you have friends, then they can pay for themselves over the course of months insteads of years. My small guild harvests my home instance everyday, and as a result, up to 20-25g of materials is generated per day from it, not to count unbound or volatile magic, so it really depends on whether you're going to be harvesting it solo or with friends or guildmates.

That's an excellent point, Hannelor! Thanks for sharing that! :)

@BlueJin.4127 said:Rather than buying them yourself, it may be best for the average player to join others offering invites to their home nodes. I often see players announcing in guild chat and map/town chat.

I often see those announcements too. I suppose I'd have to ask them if they have the season 3 nodes so as to not waste my time. Btw, how do you enter someone else's instance?

@GW Noob.6038 said:

@"BlueJin.4127" said:Rather than buying them yourself, it may be best for the average player to join others offering invites to their home nodes. I often see players announcing in guild chat and map/town chat.

You need to be in party with them.

I bought BS Ruby node while ago it made my life easy when i started aurora. I also have Difluorite Crystal Node for foods. Saves me alot of time.

@phs.6089 said:

@GW Noob.6038 said:I often see those announcements too. I suppose I'd have to ask them if they have the season 3 nodes so as to not waste my time. Btw, how do you enter someone else's instance?

To clarify, you need to be in a party with them, in the same city as them, and they need to enter the home instance so you get the popup inviting you in. If they leave the instance while you're in there (or crash out of game), you get booted.

One small benefit to having your own nodes that hasn't been mentioned yet is that the home instance counts as a map in that region, eg the human home instance is in Kryta, the asura and sylvari ones in Maguuma Jungle, norn in Shiverpeaks, charr in Ascalon. If you have enough nodes, then you can knock out a daily gather very fast. Of course, a number of the LS 3/4 maps also count for dailies and so it makes sense to forage winterberries for a Shiverpeaks Forager daily and double up on the benefits.

But if you are not on top of entering your instance every day to gather things up, yes, it may well be a waste of your resources to buy the nodes. I'm terrible at taking that home instance detour and I do regret my garden plots.

@Donari.5237 said:One small benefit to having your own nodes that hasn't been mentioned yet is that the home instance counts as a map in that region, eg the human home instance is in Kryta, the asura and sylvari ones in Maguuma Jungle, norn in Shiverpeaks, charr in Ascalon.

That applies to other people's homes as well. In fact, it's easiest to leech on the days when there's a gathering daily local to a city; lots of people offer up the opportunity.

Most everything has been said. Here is the general gist of things (I own all LWS3+4+wintersday+some from the gem store and then some nodes):

• having at least 4 nodes if each type is nice for dailies
• it will take a long time to break even
• if you join other peoples instances daily, you will not need your own nodes
• home instance nodes require daily dedication. If you are unwilling to gather them daily, don't buy them
• getting the nodes all at once is an insane grind

Nearing the end of Living World Season 4, I personally am again in the position I was near the end of Season 3: I generate enough volitile magic in between LW episodes to buy the next upgrades and/or not worry to much about trinkets. My LWS3 resources accumulate passively and I have on multiple occasions simply bought new trinkets or spent 50k+ unbound magic on packets, simply to empty my bank. I do not farm any of the LWS3 maps and only do occasionally Istan. I enjoy the home instance for the passive income it generates and the fact I don't have to farm. LW maps if I do not desire.

What I am getting at: if you treat the home instance nodes like dailies, they will be worth it in passive income generation. Unless you really do find people who will let you gather their instance daily, but what I have found here is: most people eventually don't bother with asking others for gathering.

This is the problem I've run into. It's kind of an all-or-nothing prospect. If you don't get EVERY possible node in your home instance, you may as well farm someone else's. Spending the money for just a few seems pointless, as it will not pay for itself quickly and you'll still have to farm someone else's home to get all possible nodes. Really it's best if a few people in your guild get all the nodes and then share access with the guild. I'd sooner buy a node for someone in-guild who has a nearly complete collection than to buy one node for myself knowing I'll never complete the set.