How valuable is karma in terms of gold?

[Rise.8259]

I know that people can convert Karma to gold by various means in the game, by getting items to sell on the trading post...

But it seems to me that the amount of gold you can get for karma is much lower than it's actual value.

So what I'm wondering is, if it's possible for me to convert 1,000 karma into a few gold, would it be wise to do so, or would that be a bad idea long term because the Karma is more valuable than the gold, even though I'm getting a lot of gold?

[Ayrilana.1396]

Depends on whether there’s anything that you want that requires, or will ever require, karma.

Currently 1,000 karma is worth 26 silver but that’s always subject to change.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

https://gw2efficiency.com/currencies/karma

---

To expand a bit:

• You can reliable get 1s per 1000 karma with little effort (Orrian Jewelry Boxes)
• If you participate in enough PoF to (a) have excess trading contracts and (b) do some hearts, you can get 12-25s per kilo-karma.
• Various old school methods of purchasing cheap items for karma, forging, and selling (or salvaging) the results can now yield 5-7s/kK.
• During Wintersday, you can get 1-12s by purchasing Wintersday Gifts with Karma from one of the vendors (the rate varies with the amount of gifts bought per day and the price of the gifts on the TP).

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@"Rise.8259" said:So what I'm wondering is, if it's possible for me to convert 1,000 karma into a few gold, would it be wise to do so, or would that be a bad idea long term because the Karma is more valuable than the gold, even though I'm getting a lot of gold?

That's an excellent question, as you've phrased it.

Of course, the answer varies depending on the person and their needs/interests. New content often has introduced new items that require karma, sometimes lots of karma (e.g. 315k karma for the god-themed backpacks in Siren's Landing). Legendaries require about a million for the obsidian alone. And, as noted above, there are inefficient conversions (e.g. the Wintersday gifts) that might return a better "fun per kilo-karma" than just gold.

So someone looking to make a legendary starting from scratch would think 1 million is barely enough, while there are veterans sitting on 15 million or more. According to GW2 Efficiency (which might over-represent those with a lot),

• Half the community has more than 1.3 million; half has less
• Only 20% has more than 1.7 million
• For those with under 500 hours played, those numbers become median = 0.18M and top 20% = 0.41M

Personally, I prefer having way too much karma than even slightly not enough. So for me, as a Veteran, I feel comfortable at ~4 million and light with anything under 1 million. (And this year, have been running between 0.2M and 2 M, depending on purchases of this or that.) In other words, I don't convert regularly.

How much Karma do you have today? What sort of short term and long term plans do you have? How much gold do you "need" now? Can you wait to earn it just by accumulating 'stuff' and selling it (whether salvaged or not)?

[Rise.8259]

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:How much Karma do you have today? What sort of short term and long term plans do you have? How much gold do you "need" now? Can you wait to earn it just by accumulating 'stuff' and selling it (whether salvaged or not)?

I have about 220k karma. I've been playing for a few weeks, maybe a month by now.I have about 60 gold.I don't have a target of gold in mind, but obviously I'd like to be able to convert it to gems to buy all the stuff I'd like to have. As well as having plenty of spare money to buy the gear I want for my characters.

I definitely don't think cashing in my karma for about 57 gold, at the exchange rate of 26 silver per 1000 karma, is worth it. Considering the time it took to get the karma.

But by my math, I can make much better exchange rates of karma to gold by crafting things that require karma and selling them. The question is, how much do I have to make per 1000K before it starts to really be a decent trade?

[Cyninja.2954]

Short answer: no it's not worth converting karma to gold (or silver in this case).

Longer answer: it is obviously highly dependant on how much karma and gold you have and what your longterm goals are. The conversion rate is quite low. Karma in general is an almost useless currency UNLESS you actually need it especially when going for cosmetics, minis or legendary items.

The reason why I personally advise against conversion is simple:

If you have enough karma to convert some, you have likely played enough to have gather sufficient gold. If you spend your karma now, it takes way longer to farm an equivalent amount of karma versus farming the amount gold gained.

If you have a ton of karma AND are lacking funds dramatically, it is probably best to review your expenses and where you are bleeding resources and gold.

[Taelac.7036]

If you find you want to stockpile more karma, now that you've decided not to convert it to gold (and there are vastly more efficient ways to collect gold, so I think that's a good choice), keep an eye out for the Wintersday festival in December. You can farm quite a bit of karma with boosts by doing the various activities and achievements. If you have the season unlocked, dailies in the LS3 maps are also quite efficient for karma farming, especially if you stick to the simpler ones for the greatest return for your time.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@"Rise.8259" said:But by my math, I can make much better exchange rates of karma to gold by crafting things that require karma and selling them. The question is, how much do I have to make per 1000K before it starts to really be a decent trade?

You aren't going to do tons better than 26s/1000 karma. Even at the market's peaks, 50s/kK was amazing. The problem with the crafted items is that "everyone" who follows this sort of thing already knows which items can be made with karma to trade for gold, so the competition is fierce. The beaded weapons will sell, eventually, but not fast enough to make it efficient to convert more than handfuls of karma at a time.

So save your 220k karma for later, for stuff that you can't get without karma. And instead look for other ways to acquire gold. At 63g, dailies are a great choice, plus world bosses, plus any of the HoT metas, plus the ones that people farm every day: istan and silverwastes.

It turns out if you just do things, you end up with tons of stuff, and you end up accumulating a fair bit of coin without paying attention. The reason most people in most MMOs are often poor is that they spend as fast as they earn. Find stuff you like to do, convert some mats to gold, save some, and spend as little as possible to keep you headed towards your other goals.

[Linken.6345]

with that low karma i would start unlocking heart vendor or order skins mate.

[Rise.8259]

@Linken.6345 said:with that low karma i would start unlocking heart vendor or order skins mate.

What heart vendor, what skins?

[Rise.8259]

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@Rise.8259 said:So save your 220k karma for later, for stuff that you can't get without karma. And instead look for other ways to acquire gold. At 63g, dailies are a great choice, plus world bosses, plus any of the HoT metas, plus the ones that people farm every day: istan and silverwastes.

How do you get 63 gold from dailies?I've just been getting the daily bonus of 2 gold for completing three of the dailies. Usually by playing PvP.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@Rise.8259 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@Rise.8259 said:So save your 220k karma for later, for stuff that you can't get without karma. And instead look for other ways to acquire gold. At 63g, dailies are a great choice, plus world bosses, plus any of the HoT metas, plus the ones that people farm every day: istan and silverwastes.

How do you get 63 gold from dailies?I've just been getting the daily bonus of 2 gold for completing three of the dailies. Usually by playing PvP.

A month of dailies is 60 gold.What I meant was, if you have only 63 gold, dailies provide a huge income boost on their own. For those who have 15k AP and 2000 gold (a minority), 2g in 5-15 minutes isn't that exciting.

[Linken.6345]

@Rise.8259 said:

@"Linken.6345" said:with that low karma i would start unlocking heart vendor or order skins mate.

What heart vendor, what skins?

There is a npc at each orders main campfor example Durmand Priory (headquarters) - Lornar's Pass

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Order

You can get one weapon box from doing the personal story level 30 I think it was so doing that 16 times ( 19 if there is under water skins dont remember) get you one order weapon without spending karma.Doing the personal story 48 times might feel abit excessive tho =)

[Wolfb.7025]

I'm wondering why nobody has mentioned the Pact Supply Network Agent as a way to convert Karma to Gold. I did that for a short while, but I decided to better keep Karma as I didn't really need Gold at that time.

The most profit as for today is 23g 53s by map bonuses on Frostgorge Sound on Week 2 (next week) for each 210,000 Karma spent on Pact Scout's Mapping Materials. The only drawback of this is that you can only buy 6 of these per day, and spending about15s average on waypoints (on a lv80 character).Each Pact Scout's Mapping Materials gives you 200 points on map bonus, and the map bonuses gives you items based on a reward track each 200 points up to 8000 points where the reward track resets.

Here are the links of interest:https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pact_Supply_Network_Agent#Items_offeredhttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Map_bonus_rewardhttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Map_bonus_reward/profit

[Khisanth.2948]

@"Wolfb.7025" said:I'm wondering why nobody has mentioned the Pact Supply Network Agent as a way to convert Karma to Gold. I did that for a short while, but I decided to better keep Karma as I didn't really need Gold at that time.

The most profit as for today is 23g 53s by map bonuses on Frostgorge Sound on Week 2 (next week) for each 210,000 Karma spent on Pact Scout's Mapping Materials. The only drawback of this is that you can only buy 6 of these per day, and spending about15s average on waypoints (on a lv80 character).Each Pact Scout's Mapping Materials gives you 200 points on map bonus, and the map bonuses gives you items based on a reward track each 200 points up to 8000 points where the reward track resets.

Here are the links of interest:https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pact_Supply_Network_Agent#Items_offeredhttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Map_bonus_rewardhttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Map_bonus_reward/profit

That is pretty similar to the 26g you can get by converting 220,000 karma to volatile magic via the gathering sickle

Also 220k karma isn't all that much. Even 1million karma isn't much when compared to the cost of stuff.

[starlinvf.1358]

@Khisanth.2948 said:

@"Wolfb.7025" said:I'm wondering why nobody has mentioned the Pact Supply Network Agent as a way to convert Karma to Gold. I did that for a short while, but I decided to better keep Karma as I didn't really need Gold at that time.

The most profit as for today is 23g 53s by map bonuses on Frostgorge Sound on Week 2 (next week) for each 210,000 Karma spent on Pact Scout's Mapping Materials. The only drawback of this is that you can only buy 6 of these per day, and spending about15s average on waypoints (on a lv80 character).Each Pact Scout's Mapping Materials gives you 200 points on map bonus, and the map bonuses gives you items based on a reward track each 200 points up to 8000 points where the reward track resets.

Here are the links of interest:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pact_Supply_Network_Agent#Items_offered

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Map_bonus_reward

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Map_bonus_reward/profit

That is pretty similar to the 26g you can get by converting 220,000 karma to volatile magic via the gathering sickle

Also 220k karma isn't all that much. Even 1million karma isn't much when compared to the cost of stuff.

Well... considering how cheap T6 mats are, the Mapping material is best spent stocking up on T6 bloods and Charged lode stones for later use. It takes about 4-5 weeks before the prices creep back on up on it.... but its been naturally trending down over the last couple of years. But given how bloods and totems are still usually 20-30% more expensive then the others, its still a good opportunity to convert karma to something relatively straight forward and takes all of 5-10 minutes of a daily routine.

[Wolfb.7025]

@"Wolfb.7025" said:I'm wondering why nobody has mentioned the Pact Supply Network Agent as a way to convert Karma to Gold. I did that for a short while, but I decided to better keep Karma as I didn't really need Gold at that time.

The most profit as for today is 23g 53s by map bonuses on Frostgorge Sound on Week 2 (next week) for each 210,000 Karma spent on Pact Scout's Mapping Materials. The only drawback of this is that you can only buy 6 of these per day, and spending about15s average on waypoints (on a lv80 character).Each Pact Scout's Mapping Materials gives you 200 points on map bonus, and the map bonuses gives you items based on a reward track each 200 points up to 8000 points where the reward track resets.

Here are the links of interest:https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pact_Supply_Network_Agent#Items_offeredhttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Map_bonus_rewardhttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Map_bonus_reward/profit

The most profit as for today is 19g81s on week 5 (we're on Week 8 and it will cycle to Week 1 this monday), which still is a very good conversion of karma to gold (210,000 Karma total), 500k Karma isn't that much, you can easily make at least 80-100k karma on a daily basis for not more than 20 minutes now that the Wintersday Event is on. Pretty good huh?

Edit: oh geez i'm dumb, I wanted to post this on another topic and now I necro posted, sorry about that.