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How do you get black lion key's?


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@silverfox.1056 said:I know you use to be able to farm them by doing the beginning story over and over, but if I'm not mistaken they nerfed it so you could only do it once a week or something like that. Is buying them really the only (efficient) way?

yes buying them in the only reliable way to get them with any efficiency. I get them now and again on drops but only a few times a year.

I also never really get anything of value from the chests. I do get things I want though even though they have no value :)

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You can get 1/week with a lvl 10 story on a new character... that's the nerf that you're remembering. Keys are available at later story steps if you want to invest the time in a single character to "farm" it out.

You have an RNG chance of getting them as map rewards or from the BL box that features weekly as part of the login rewards.

The only "efficient" way of getting them is by purchasing them, which is logically what Anet wants. If we could get 5-10 per week or even per month with little effort, very few people would bother to spend gems (cash) on them. You could dedicate your time and effort to amassing gold to convert to gems to get keys, but that's like working a full time job to fuel casino trips in the evening... if that's your thing.

Edit: Wiki site for reference - shows all of the acquisition methods (BLCK)... Also, watch for a sale as part of this March sales blitz. I'd be very surprised if it didn't show up.

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From the wiki article

Personal story rewards
  • Completion of the level 10 racial story (Only once per week per account). ← This is the so-called "Key Run"
  • Setting the Stage (level 40)
  • The Battle of Claw Island (level 60)
Living World rewards
  • Living World Season 2: Tangled Paths - Into the Labyrinth (level 80)
Heart of Thorns rewards
  • Heart of Thorns: Act 3: Roots of Terror (level 80)
Contained in

Containers Bought From the Gem Shop
  • Account Bump
  • Account Jump Start
  • Bank Job Package
  • Black Lion Introductory Package
  • Black Lion Key Set
  • Black Lion Keys and Scrap Package
  • Chest of Black Lion Goods
  • Elonian Introductory Package
  • Ironclad Appearance Pack
  • Path of Fire Preparation Pack
  • White Mantle Appearance Pack

Containers Earned as Rewards
  • Achievement Chest (Heavy, Large, Massive)
  • Mini Jackal Pup Reward Chest
  • Mini Raptor Hatchling Reward Chest
Other
  • Chance from the reward for map completion, except for city maps and Southsun Cove (since December 1, 2015)
  • Extremely rare drop from foes
  • Chance from PvP Reward Track chests
  • Reward in some PvP Rank tracks and PvP Mist Champion tracks

Editor's note: to make it easier to answer the OP's question, I separated "other" into "Gem Shop" and "Non Gem Shop". The wiki article doesn't do that (although perhaps it should).

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I stopped trying to farm them in game when I noticed it was boring to do.I realized:1- Keys themselves weren't truly valuable, due RNG nature.2- Farming them was a repetitive chore, a work I have to do when I should be getting fun.3- The time invested "working" to get a key from the game was relevant.4- My own pay per hour in my real work allowed me to get the cost of a key in less work-time.

So now I buy them with cash because I requires less work-time from me and is more fun. I buy them in small batches (5) whenever they add a new patch, to support the game and try my luck. It has worked quite well so far.

If I couldn't buy them with cash I wouldn't get them at all. They don't deserve such involvement.

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  • 10 months later...

@"Shadowmoon.7986" said:Add to boot you can sell gifts of masteries as legendaries for around 500g profit each. World completion will give a quite alot of keys and other mats.

How do you mean? Are you talking about making a legendary (for which you need Gift of Exploraton) and then sell the Legendary? That sounds like a lot of work for 500g, assuming that you buy every mat from the TP in the first place. Admitted, I enjoy making Legendaries (on my 5th) but not for selling.As to farming keys by rerolling a level 10 char: I am doing that now with my Alt accounts (using the "level up with Cooking for less then 1 gold") method and I am actually kinda enjoying it. However, I am 53 Keys later, and never got a single "uncommon" drop. Let alone a rare or superrare(which I understand). :)

I am still enjoying it since I do get the occasional nice Dye now and then and off course some utility stuff. Also simply enjoy the mindless footwork as a noob in Queensdale. The wardrobe unlocks (few and far in between) have not much use since these alt accounts do not even have the simplest basic stuff so I get rather mundane stuff usually. :) Also, after a year, I guess I will have enough statuettes to get a Black Lion Claim ticket and maybe a couple of scrap tickets.

All it did was strengthen my belief to never ever buy Keys for gems (dollars) in the store. 53 keys is over 4200 Gems which is equivalent to 50 euros... this must be the worst return for any microtransaction in any game(ok, hyperbole). I guess you have more use out of it if you use those keys on a single Main account, but still. To be sure, not strapped for money, else I would not have so many Alt accounts (that already paid themselves back in Dailies gold). I just think the rng on Keys is really, really bad. I use the gold from the Alt-dailies for making Legendaries. I want all of them! (Exept the newer ones without the collection part, those are boring).

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@Tyncale.1629 said:

@Shadowmoon.7986 said:Add to boot you can sell gifts of masteries as legendaries for around 500g profit each. World completion will give a quite alot of keys and other mats.

How do you mean? Are you talking about making a legendary (for which you need Gift of Exploraton) and then sell the Legendary? That sounds like a lot of work for 500g, assuming that you buy every mat from the TP in the first place. Admitted, I enjoy making Legendaries (on my 5th) but not for selling.

There's 2 ways this can work. The simplest is to make a gen 1 legendary and sell it on the TP, in which case you have to do everything yourself so it is a lot of work, especially because you ideally don't want to buy the materials from the TP, at least not using 'buy now' as you're aiming to keep the cost as low as possible in order to maximise profit.

The other option is to find someone who wants a legendary and offer to make it for them. They provide all the tradable parts (precursor, materials for Gift of Might and Magic and the legendary specific gift, ectoplasm, potentially materials to make the mystic clovers) and a pre-agreed amount of gold to cover the cost of the account bound parts. That way you only have to provide the Gift of Battle, Gift of Exploration, Bloodstone Shard and 250 Obsidian Shards, plus the minimal time needed to combine it all.

If you're the type of person who does map completion and WvW anyway that's very little additional effort on your part in return for a large chunk of gold (plus it skips the TP fees you'd pay if you sold it that way), and the other person gets a legendary for less than it would cost on the TP without having to do what they might consider the most time consuming and difficult parts.

Of course there's a risk for both parties in being scammed. The person making the legendary could take the materials and vanish, or the person buying it could never pay the extra gold, and in either case Anet won't help because you're not supposed to trade outside the TP. So you do need to make sure it's someone you can trust. But it can and does happen.

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@silverfox.1056 said:I know you use to be able to farm them by doing the beginning story over and over, but if I'm not mistaken they nerfed it so you could only do it once a week or something like that. Is buying them really the only (efficient) way?

My advice to you is to NOT get them. They are absolutely worthless. Got myself 100 keys for Christmas and got nothing but junk. Only 7 keys yielded a 5th slot and of that only one got a skin worth about 20 gold... 5th slot drop rate is absolutely atrocious. It is just a waste of money. On the subject of rare drops, the same seems to go for dyes, their drop rate is stupidly low too. I don't mind spending money but this is just ridiculous.

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  • 4 months later...

@Tyncale.1629 said:

@Shadowmoon.7986 said:Add to boot you can sell gifts of masteries as legendaries for around 500g profit each. World completion will give a quite alot of keys and other mats.

my belief to never
ever
buy Keys for gems (dollars) in the store. 53 keys is over 4200 Gems which is equivalent to 50 euros... this must be the worst return for any microtransaction in any game(ok, hyperbole). I guess you have more use out of it if you use those keys on a single Main account, but still. To be sure, not strapped for money, else I would not have so many Alt accounts (that already paid themselves back in Dailies gold). I just think the rng on Keys is really, really bad. I use the gold from the Alt-dailies for making Legendaries. I want all of them! (Exept the newer ones without the collection part, those are boring).

$50 is about an hour's worth of real-life work for some of us. Far better return on our time (which is more valuable) to purchase than farm in that way.

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  • 1 month later...

@Marthisdil.9654 said:

@Shadowmoon.7986 said:Add to boot you can sell gifts of masteries as legendaries for around 500g profit each. World completion will give a quite alot of keys and other mats.

my belief to never
ever
buy Keys for gems (dollars) in the store. 53 keys is over 4200 Gems which is equivalent to 50 euros... this must be the worst return for any microtransaction in any game(ok, hyperbole). I guess you have more use out of it if you use those keys on a single Main account, but still. To be sure, not strapped for money, else I would not have so many Alt accounts (that already paid themselves back in Dailies gold). I just think the rng on Keys is really, really bad. I use the gold from the Alt-dailies for making Legendaries. I want all of them! (Exept the newer ones without the collection part, those are boring).

$50 is about an hour's worth of real-life work for some of us. Far better return on our time (which is more valuable) to purchase than farm in that way.

Just going to point out 50 euro isn't the same as 50$ (quick search and it is more like 56$) Maybe a small difference, but felt like pointing it out. Either way I certainly don't get that much.

On topic... I do keyruns of varying lenght almost weekly. I do them because of the tomes and scrolls I have and get, since I have nothing else to do with them. When I have scrolls that give level 30-40 I also get the level 40 story key. When I have level 50-60+ scrolls I also get the level 60 story key. I may consider the LS2 key too when level 70 and 80 scrolls happen, since you can skip all personal story and LS instances between that key and the previous one.I will admit it is a lot of work for mostly little outcome, but since I got the time but not the money... eh it works for me. If I had no scroll or tomes there would be no keyruns, not even the level 10 one.I do occasional map completion too, but mostly if I got nothing else to do.

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  • 6 months later...

Every time a new chest comes out, I open 5 of them with keys. That way, I'm playing the lottery, but am not to upset that I didn't win big (if I used 50 keys and got nothing of value, I'd be more upset/annoyed).Whenever they are on sale, I buy 25 of them - that is enough to last for 5 new chest cycles. I enjoy GW2, so figure I should throw some cash at Anet once in a while. The vast majority of stuff in the cash shop is stuff of zero interest to me (cosmetics), and I've already bought pretty much all the useful convenience upgrades (shared slot, unlimited gathering & salvaging).I do get occasional keys from map completion - I slowly work my way through map completion - for whatever the daily vista/gatherer is, I have a character who does not have world completion work on some unexplored area of the map in that area. So over the course of several months, I get another world completion, and an occasional key for each map completion.But I'm also like some where I get paid a good salary, so spending 20 minutes farming a key is not worth it to me - I'd rather spend that time doing content I enjoy, and spend a few dollars to buy the keys. But I understand that not everyone is in this situation.

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