Acquiring dyes.

[Oldirtbeard.9834]

My wife just started playing GW2 again recently and she's really interested in getting dyes. Here's the thing a lot of these prices are bonkers, we're talking some are as expensive as precursors for example so I have 2 questions.

Is there a site that lists cheaper knock off dyes that offer close approximations to some of the rare ones?

Just to give her a goal is Cooking a good profession for her to level if she wants to unlock dyes for her self or is it not worth the effort?

In any case she's a super casual player, she asks me questions about things I just take for granted and have trouble explaining so perhaps just having her save up gold for cheap knock offs might be the way to go.

PS What is a good resource, perhaps a video even that might help her get her sea legs with GW2, familiar with the features, UI even; I am a crumby teacher?

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

Dyealogue offers you a view about all available colors, can be sorted by categories and it shows the result color on all three possible layers, which is important to determine a replacement-color. I would sort them by hue, so you can see which result in similar colors.

Crafting the dyes yourself is a nice idea, but keep in mind that the craftable ones are gamble-dyes. If you craft a rare Unidentified Red Dye, you do not get a rare red dye out of it in many cases. You may still receive a common or uncommon dye. Another thing you have to keep in mind, some of the expensive dyes cannot be aquired from those craftable dyes.

Here are a few alternaives to aquire dyes:1.) Go to the TP and list all dyes by price, ascending. You get a good load of dyes very cheap.2.) If you make a new character and do let us say the first three story-chapters (level 30), you aquire one Unidentified Dye, several Bags of Loot. Upon opening them, you have a good chance to get more Unidentified Dyes. You also get access to order weapons of your choice and at least one black lion key.3.) Dye Packs from the Gemstore. Once in a while, they sell dye-packs for gems. Rather expensive in my opinion, but if you are interested in a certain dye, you can farm money and turn gold to gems.4.) Getting older. As ridiculous as it sounds, it works. Characters which are 3 years old, get a dye for their birthday and every following year. Those dyes allow you to select from very exclusive selections. That way, I have obtained the Shadow Abyss Dye, which would cost 450 gold normally. Those dyes are never tradeable, but if you make your pick with caution, you can save a lot of money.Dye Selection for the 3rd birthday of your characterDye Selection for the 4th birthday of your characterDye Selection for the 5th birthday of your characterAgain, those are for characters, not accounts. The more old characters you own, the more dyes you can get. But for someone who just started the game, this might look not so lucrative ...

[TwilightSoul.9048]

I love to collect dyes myself (I just like to have as many options as possible) and I found, having as many characters as possible is the most important thing about collecting dyes. Unfortunatly you have to wait for all the Birthdays :POther than that I like to use gw2efficiency to check which dyes I'm missing and which ones are the cheapest and then I just buy a handfull of cheap dyes every then and now. Until I'm only missing the 100g+ dyes, which is quite bothersome.. But at that point you'll have a decent array of dyes available! :)

[therapite.3645]

So I used to call myself a quaint dye collector with a lore problem. I had this thing where I used to stop at every possible node because you MAYBE could get a dye out of it, when dyes used to drop in the game, and it used to drive my friends CRAZY NUTSO over it. Back in the day you used to have to have dyes open on each character to use them so I had characters with different dyes because they ALL had to have options. When they made it so that dyes were account wide I was SO HAPPY and as a result they said 'hey so for every duplicate you have we'll give you an unidentified dye!' and long story short what is your wife's account name? Feel free to PM it to me.

[Oldirtbeard.9834]

@therapite.3645 said:So I used to call myself a quaint dye collector with a lore problem. I had this thing where I used to stop at every possible node because you MAYBE could get a dye out of it, when dyes used to drop in the game, and it used to drive my friends CRAZY NUTSO over it. Back in the day you used to have to have dyes open on each character to use them so I had characters with different dyes because they ALL had to have options. When they made it so that dyes were account wide I was SO HAPPY and as a result they said 'hey so for every duplicate you have we'll give you an unidentified dye!' and long story short what is your wife's account name? Feel free to PM it to me.

Not sure if it was you or some one else but thanks for the two packages which I forwarded to my wife. I mailed you her account name, thank you.

[Danikat.8537]

One thing to consider is that a lot of rare dyes are very bright, which means they don't look good together unless you're going for a very colourful character.

It might be better to get one rare dye in a favourite colour and then cheaper ones to go with it.

Also if you're not already aware you can preview all the dyes you don't have in game using the dye menu. If you experiment you can often find cheaper alternatives.

[therapite.3645]

@Oldirtbeard.9834 said:

@therapite.3645 said:So I used to call myself a quaint dye collector with a lore problem. I had this thing where I used to stop at every possible node because you MAYBE could get a dye out of it, when dyes used to drop in the game, and it used to drive my friends CRAZY NUTSO over it. Back in the day you used to have to have dyes open on each character to use them so I had characters with different dyes because they ALL had to have options. When they made it so that dyes were account wide I was SO HAPPY and as a result they said 'hey so for every duplicate you have we'll give you an unidentified dye!' and long story short what is your wife's account name? Feel free to PM it to me.

Not sure if it was you or some one else but thanks for the two packages which I forwarded to my wife. I mailed you her account name, thank you.

Hey! So that wasn't me, but I'm so happy that people sent you things for her! I've just sent her 125 dyes to go through at her leisure. Whatever she doesn't need once it's opened can be sold or tossed into the Mystic Forge for chances at better dye!

[Witch of Doom.5739]

Some of the rare dyes are IMO hype. Take Permafrost. I get that some people want it because it's so brilliantly, blindingly white and that it's rare and super-expensive. But when I've previewed it on armor it's so white that it nukes so much detail and doesn't look good to me. I'm happy with White or Celestial, and if I ever somehow randomly got Permafrost I'd sell it in a heartbeat. Some of the ultra-dark dyes are so dark to my old eyes that they look pretty much the same. Bottom line, try not to pine after a dye only because it's rare. Find what YOU love (or in this case, what your wife loves). I happen to love how any of the Enameled dyes look and am saving up for them.

[therapite.3645]

For some of us it's about the collection aspect, and for some, it's about the options, while for others it's purely about the usefulness. Some of the dyes are so oversaturated that they look ridiculous on most armor... except for that one thing that they look just perfect on. Those Shadow dyes are ridiculously dark.... unless you're dyeing these or those things and then they're just perfect. The permafrost dyes are blindingly bright but there are a few things that wouldn't look as amazing without them to some people. It's all about what you're after, and since it's your character and your account (or in this case, your wife's!) you can do what you like :) That's part of the beauty of this game, I think.

[Khisanth.2948]

@Witch of Doom.5739 said:Some of the rare dyes are IMO hype. Take Permafrost. I get that some people want it because it's so brilliantly, blindingly white and that it's rare and super-expensive. But when I've previewed it on armor it's so white that it nukes so much detail and doesn't look good to me. I'm happy with White or Celestial, and if I ever somehow randomly got Permafrost I'd sell it in a heartbeat. Some of the ultra-dark dyes are so dark to my old eyes that they look pretty much the same. Bottom line, try not to pine after a dye only because it's rare. Find what YOU love (or in this case, what your wife loves). I happen to love how any of the Enameled dyes look and am saving up for them.

There are also cases where a expensive dye is the exact same color as a cheaper dye for certain materials or very close to the same color and then there is the issue of dye panel versus reality ...

[therapite.3645]

@Khisanth.2948 said:

@Witch of Doom.5739 said:Some of the rare dyes are IMO hype. Take Permafrost. I get that some people want it because it's so brilliantly, blindingly white and that it's rare and super-expensive. But when I've previewed it on armor it's so white that it nukes so much detail and doesn't look good to me. I'm happy with White or Celestial, and if I ever somehow randomly got Permafrost I'd sell it in a heartbeat. Some of the ultra-dark dyes are so dark to my old eyes that they look pretty much the same. Bottom line, try not to pine after a dye only because it's rare. Find what YOU love (or in this case, what your wife loves). I happen to love how any of the Enameled dyes look and am saving up for them.

There are also cases where a expensive dye is the exact same color as a cheaper dye for certain materials or very close to the same color and then there is the issue of dye panel versus reality ...

Dye panel vs. reality is the actual worst. I have spent so long looking at my panel getting JUST the right shade of something only to find out that it doesn't work when out in the world and it is maddening. MADDENING, I tell you.

[Saphykun.3206]

I have seen from time to time unidentified dyes being given as a bonus for completing x events in a certain map. Hover your cursor over the map's name to see what possible bonus rewards you can get from completing some events there (try level 15-25 map zones). Whether or not it's worth it (time, chance of identifying rare dye) is not something I can say with confidence. Maybe she can give it a try? :)

[Oldirtbeard.9834]

Thank you to every one that donated dyes to my wife, it was like watching a kid on Christmas.

Plus today she got to learn about Inventory Wars, now instead of outfits she wants bag slots next time we get paid.

[DebraKadabra.5278]

gw2efficiency also has the dye list, and previews are different based on armor weight. You do, however, need to give the website an API key from your GW2 account, which for gw2efficiency is totally safe.

[Silmar Alech.4305]

Be aware that there are 4 tiers of dyes: common (blue letters), uncommon (green letters), rare (yellow letters), gemshop (yellow letters but special icon with that orange glow).

Buying all 181 of the common dyes is less expensive than one or two of the rare ones.

Start by selecting only the common dyes in the trading post. Don't buy instantly, put up orders for each of them, 1 copper more than the current highest order. Tomorrow, collect the dyes you got and revise your still existing buying orders. If you don't have the highest buying order any more, put up a new one 1 copper more than the now highest order and cancel your previous one. This doesn't have any fee connected to it.The next day, do the same. And so on, until you have all common dyes. You just spent less than 2 gold for 181 dyes. It's probably better having all of those for choice than having only one rare color that cost the same as all common together.

Then go on the the uncommon dyes and do the same. All 119 uncommon dyes cost 14 gold all together.

Then go on to the rare dyes. Sort them by price and skip the more expensive ones. This will automatically exclude the totally overprices gemshop dyes. The 82 rare ones excluding gemshop dyes cost 115 gold.

The 127 gemshop dyes cost 7388 gold. Skip them. Forget them. They don't exist, except in the birthday presents you get starting the 3rd birthday.

And don't gamble. Buy the dyes directly in the trading post. Most straightforward way to get exactly all dyes with no duplicates. If you get an unindentified dye, sell it at the trading post and buy the dye you want to have for the revenue of the unidentified dye. Duplicates sell dirt cheap, so it's no use opening unidentified dyes.

[Dreamy Lu.3865]

You can go for application GW2 Efficiency: https://gw2efficiency.com/account/overview

I have it and that's the best I have seen up to now. Out of all we can do with it, you get a specific overview of all dyes, what ones are unlocked, what ones not, how much each is costing at BLT, and you can structured the overview as it suits you, like for example ordering from cheapest to most expensive, or else.

Otherwise, by now, Wiki is also quite well done: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dye

[Oldirtbeard.9834]

Thanks for the advice.