Silverwastes Shovels. Faster Way or A Snail Pace?

Been farming these off and on for the longest period of time when I play the game. Lowest drop rate ever especially for a tiny guild. Any way to speed things up to get these or are they just random drop?

The grind for these is starting to grow on me. Would like to know if there was a faster way to get these without inviting people to a private guild :)

You should be doing events in Silverwastes not killing random mobs for these.

You can buy them from people too, I'm pretty sure anet has a policy protecting you against scammers although I'm not sure of all the details.(??)

I am absolutely overflowing with them from the events.

I bit the bullet and bought shovels that I needed. Nobody should ever go insane farming for shovels in the SW. Bargaining rate is 15s per shovel I'm told.

... getting a dozen is fairly quick even without joining a RIBA group.

@rwolf.9571 said:I bit the bullet and bought shovels that I needed. Nobody should ever go insane farming for shovels in the SW. Bargaining rate is 15s per shovel I'm told.

I don't think this option is available anymore. They are now account bound. Which completely sucks. Our guild of 8 now needs around 350 of these. If we ever get them, we'll all be so burned out on Silverwastes that we'll never go back. Seems kinda counterproductive on A-net's part. And maybe why Silverwastes is so empty now...

@Graymalkyn.8076 said:

@rwolf.9571 said:I bit the bullet and bought shovels that I needed. Nobody should ever go insane farming for shovels in the SW. Bargaining rate is 15s per shovel I'm told.

It's not like the trade, you invite seller into guild, pay the price, they donate.

@phs.6089 said:

@Graymalkyn.8076 said:

@rwolf.9571 said:I bit the bullet and bought shovels that I needed. Nobody should ever go insane farming for shovels in the SW. Bargaining rate is 15s per shovel I'm told.

Ah...Thanks. That does help.

@Fluffball.8307 said:You can buy them from people too, I'm pretty sure anet has a policy protecting you against scammers although I'm not sure of all the details.(??)

I am absolutely overflowing with them from the events.

Anet absolutely does not have a policy protecting you from buying anything outside of the Trading Post.If it’s an account bound item you are purchasing (like shovels, g-invite>pay>they donate), you run the same risk as you would buying anything else outside of the TP. Anet May ban the scammer, but you won’t be compensated.

@Haleydawn.3764 said:

@Fluffball.8307 said:You can buy them from people too, I'm pretty sure anet has a policy protecting you against scammers although I'm not sure of all the details.(??)

I am absolutely overflowing with them from the events.

I wrote that comment two years ago, and haven't been playing for quite some time, but what makes you say that? I've seen shit tons of people get helped by support in all sorts of situations, like even reimbursing items you accidentally deleted which is 100% your own fault. And Anet has always been VERY strict about not scamming others.

You're way too confident for neither of us knowing other than via anecdote. You have no idea what a support person would do.

@Fluffball.8307 said:You can buy them from people too, I'm pretty sure anet has a policy protecting you against scammers although I'm not sure of all the details.(??)

@Haleydawn.3764 said:Anet absolutely

does not

have a policy protecting you from buying anything outside of the Trading Post.In fact, the official policy protecting us from scammers is the Trading Post. It exists in part to prevent scamming.

@Haleydawn.3764 said:If it’s an account bound item you are purchasing (like shovels, g-invite>pay>they donate), you run the same risk as you would buying anything else outside of the TP. Anet May ban the scammer, but you won’t be compensated.

It's not anecdotal: ANet has said, multiple times, that we're on our own when trading outside the TP. Do you actually have an example to refute that policy? I've been reading official posts for years and cannot recall a single occasion in which someone has even claimed that ANet made an exception.

You're way too confident for neither of us knowing other than via anecdote. You have no idea what a support person would do.We have a pretty clear idea because ANet has gone to some lengths to make sure we realize that trading outside the TP is not supported, even for account bound items donated to a guild hall.

That said, I know of many, many examples of people trading outside the TP without encountering any issues. Some are people who have traded once or twice, some for people who have made a single bulk purchase, and some are people who trade regularly. Of course, there are scammers out there (and there are always too many examples of that). But for the most part, grey market trading seems to go just fine.

For the OP: you sometimes can find people willing to join a guild just to donate shovels, without cost. You might try asking in /map or in the Players Helping Players sub forum. I'd offer my own, except... well, I just donated them all to a friend who is building up a 3-person guild hall.

just buy them off people, put it up on LFG under Tyria Squad channel, i have like close to 500 shovels

contact me in-game if you are interested in buying

@crepuscular.9047 said:just buy them off people, put it up on LFG under Tyria Squad channel, i have like close to 500 shovels

contact me in-game if you are interested in buying

I wouldent advice putting up a wtb lfg since that is lfg abuse and may get reported.

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781"the official policy protecting us from scammers is the Trading Post. It exists in part to prevent scamming.

Semantics. In game mechanics aren’t technically company policies, but I catch the drift.Does Anet have a supported mechanic that allows trading between players? Yes, the trading post.Does Anet have a policy protecting you (legitimate buyer/seller) when you trade outside of the trading post? Nope. Player to player trading is unsupported, and an “at your own risk” practice.

I found these snippets of info, and nothing has inherently changed in company practice;

“trades and sales initiated in the (LFG)tool are at high risk for scams. While our Customer Support Team will take action on the accounts of players who engage in scams and other disallowed activities, they generally will not be able to replace items of players who fall victim to these unscrupulous individuals.““Buyer and/or seller beware.” If the team is able to verify that a scam took place, they may be able to act upon the account of the scammer, but that would not involve returning lost items or currency or the fulfillment of the player-to-player “contract.””

~ https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Policy-on-the-LFG-Tool/

@Linken.6345 said:

@crepuscular.9047 said:just buy them off people, put it up on LFG under Tyria Squad channel, i have like close to 500 shovels

contact me in-game if you are interested in buying

it's not like you are trolling people

it's really no different from those selling raid runs, and dungeon and fractal runs back in the old days

and when HoT just came out it was flooded with guilds looking to buy shovels

@Haleydawn.3764 said:

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781"the official policy protecting us from scammers is the Trading Post. It exists in part to prevent scamming.

well... Anet need to change shovels to be no longer account bound

@crepuscular.9047 said:well... Anet need to change shovels to be no longer account bound

Why? The system is working as intended and those with lower levels of patience have a work-around.

@crepuscular.9047 said:

@Linken.6345 said:

@crepuscular.9047 said:just buy them off people, put it up on LFG under Tyria Squad channel, i have like close to 500 shovels

contact me in-game if you are interested in buying

They allow selling raid/dungeon/fractal run because it is still technically looking for a group to do a group activity.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@crepuscular.9047 said:well... Anet need to change shovels to be no longer account bound

Still, it would be nice if they'd increase the drop rate, or make them tradable/buyable on the BLTP. Yesterday I spent 1,5 hrs running around doing whatever tasks/events I could and didn't get a single shovel. Not one. It's very disheartening.

@Graymalkyn.8076 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@crepuscular.9047 said:well... Anet need to change shovels to be no longer account bound

Are you sure you were on the correct map? O_o

Back when my guild still needed them I did SW in sessions of around 10 shovels. Pretty sure it never required that long in any of the sessions although having the misfortune of arriving at a map that just finished VW will add around 20 minutes.

@Demilion.5683 said:Been farming these off and on for the longest period of time when I play the game. Lowest drop rate ever especially for a tiny guild. Any way to speed things up to get these or are they just random drop?

The grind for these is starting to grow on me. Would like to know if there was a faster way to get these without inviting people to a private guild :)

Are you NA or EU?

@Khisanth.2948 said:

@Graymalkyn.8076 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@crepuscular.9047 said:well... Anet need to change shovels to be no longer account bound

I'm sure. But the SW map is usually pretty sparsely populated these days, so that probably makes it worse.

So...just completed my second meta trip today. Failed the first time, but we completed it just now. Not one shovel either time. I mean really...this is just getting stupid.

@Graymalkyn.8076 said:So...just completed my second meta trip today. Failed the first time, but we completed it just now. Not one shovel either time. I mean really...this is just getting stupid.

Ideally you need to be tagging events - shovels come from the events reward cycles. I tend to hang round the middle, tagging red and purple events and the odd dolyak off to yellow, along side any veteran spawns

@Graymalkyn.8076 said:

@Khisanth.2948 said:

@Graymalkyn.8076 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@crepuscular.9047 said:well... Anet need to change shovels to be no longer account bound

Check LFG for something called RIBAThere's pretty much always one up in EU...