Fine Crafting Materials - Where To Find Them

[unruly]

Considering that, at least for me and many others that I'm aware of, the crafting process is most slowed by the hard to find "fine" crafting materials. Because of this, I figured it would be good to start a post on what drops which items, and where to go to get them. I'll start off with the little bit that I know myself, and update the sections as we find more farming spots. If you know of a good spot, please post and I will try to keep this thread updated.

First, lets just get the fact that all crafting materials, fine or otherwise, can be found in loot bags out of the way. Loot bags are things like "Stolen Goods," "Ritual Bags," etc that you have to double click to get what's inside of. Loot bags drop off of pretty much everything that's remotely humanoid, such as Bandits/Pirates, Charr, Centaurs, Ettins, Trolls, Harpies, etc.

Also, crafting materials are based on a tier system, and which tier drops is based on enemy level. Your best bet to find a crafting material of a certain tier is to go to an area that is in that tier's level range. Some areas will actually cover two tiers, so you'll have to pay attention to the level of the enemies you're fighting to make sure you're getting what you want. I may be wrong about level ranges for each tier, but it seems to move in about 15-level increments from what I've seen so far. So Tier 1 is levels 1-15, Tier 2 is 15-30, etc. It's much the same way that the map areas are split up.

Now, on to the mats themselves -

Blood - Skales, Skelks, Bats, Harpies, and Trolls.
Tier 1(Vial of Weak Blood) - In Queensdale, just south of the Scaver WP there's an area with Ridgeback Skales.
Tier 2(Vial of Thin Blood) - Snowden Drifts, Darkhoof Hills. There's harpies to the west of the centaur camp and trolls to the east. Just watch out for the Champion troll.
-- Kessex Hills, Manfire Hills, skales
-- Gendarran Fields, Lake Gendarr, skales
Tier 3(Vial on Blood) - Fields of Ruin, Tanglerot Hills. Kill the harpies.
-- Blazeridge Steppes, Twin Sisters Crossing, Kill scales.
-- Harathi Hinterlands, Arca Lake, Kill harpies
Tier 4(Vial of Thick Blood) - Iron Marches, Ebbing Heart Run, Kill scales


Totems - Norn, Grawl, Jotun
Tier 2(Small Totem) - Snowden Drifts, The Frozen Sweeps WP. Sons of Svanir there drop them occasionally, but there's also lots of wolves and elementals that drop claws, so it's a general farm spot.
--Diessa Plateau, Holystone Caves - Kill the Grawl.
Tier 3(Totem) - Dredgehaunt Cliffs, Panther Snarl Shrine, Sons of Svanir


Dust - Ghosts, Undead, Elementals, "Branded" enemies.
Tier 1(Glittering Dust) - Plains of Ashford, pretty much anywhere ghosts are to be found there. The ghosts spawn pretty rapidly.
Tier 2(Shimmering Dust) - Diessa Plateau, Breached Wall, Kill ghosts. Again, they spawn pretty quickly here.
-- Gendarran Fields, Lawen Ponds, Kill risen.
Tier 3(Radiant Dust) - Fields of Ruin, head to the NW corner, and start killing everything.


Scales - Drakes, Fish, Skales, pretty much anything aquatic. Also can drop off of Devourers
Tier 1(Tiny Scale) - Calcedon Forest, Ruins of the Unseen, kill skritt
Tier 2(Small Scale) - Gendarran Fields, Lake Gendarr, kill barracuda.
-- Harathi Hinterlands, Guardian Lake, kill river drakes.
Tier 3(Scale) - Harathi Hinterlands, Arca Lake, kill barracuda.

Bones - Undead, Ettins, Trolls, Jotun, Grawl
Tier 2(Bone Shard) - Diesssa Plateau, Holystone Caves. Kill the Grawl.


Fangs - Bears, Warthogs, Plains Wurms, and Skelks.
Tier 2(Small Fang) - Diessa Plateau, Holystone Caves. Farm the grubs.


Claws - Charr, Raptors, Wolves, Drakes, and I think Devourers as well.
Tier 2(Small Claw) - Snowden Drifts, The Frozen Sweeps WP. The Icebrood Elementals and the Icebrood Wolves.


Venom Sacs - Spiders, Plains Wurms, Devourers, Grubs, and Wasps.
Tier 1(Tiny Venom Sac) - Queensdale, Shaemor fields, spiders
Tier 2(Small Venom Sac) - Brisban Wildlands, West of Ultra Metamagical's WP. Just farm the Breeze Riders.
-- Diessa Plateau, Holystone Caves. Farm the grubs.
-- Gendarran Fields, Overlook Cavern, cave spiders.


EDIT: Thanks Wolfenswan for that link, and thanks to all the people at GWG who have contributed to that thread. I'll add the stuff that I know sure should drop directly, but some of the stuff they mention looks like they might be listing drops received from loot bags. If anyone confirms a direct drop, or we find out that certain loot bags are better for certain things, I'll add them in.

[Blaaaaaaag]

I've been farming the Small Venom Sacs from Breeze Riders in the Brisban Wildlands, just East of the Ulta Metamagicals waypoint/heart quest.

Also, great thread, thanks!

[Malawi Frontier Guard]

Skales don't drop scales. I am sure of this.

[Ritashi]

I've gotten scales from skales, but I think it's a much more rare drop than blood is.

[boyspud]

Minotaurs seem to be quite good for Blood also. Ive gotten a good few from minotaurs in Plains of Ashford and Lornars Pass.

[apricotsoup]

Sons of svanir drop totems, at least the 3rd version of them (the regular "totem").

[Wolfenswan]

Also: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/...terials-farms/

[Junea]

I farmed some Vials of blood (don't remember which tier it was atm) from bats in a cave in north eastern corner of Bloodtide Coast. They seemed to drop blood fairly often and there are also non aggressive grubs there that drop venom sacs.

[hawksbane]

I realise this is slightly off topic, but where can I get Jute? I'm desperately trying to level my leatherworking skills but can't find any jute. Tier 1 leather (stretched rawhide?) would be helpful too.

[Jockie]

I realise this is slightly off topic, but where can I get Jute? I'm desperately trying to level my leatherworking skills but can't find any jute. Tier 1 leather (stretched rawhide?) would be helpful too.

Either from salvaging light armour, salvage items or in the little loot bags you get from human enemies. Best place I've found is in Beggar's Burrow, which is a little cave carved into a hill in Queensdale - head right from the little village at the start of queensdale, through the water, cave is on the left. The respawn rate is really quick, very fast for farming jute.

[zanchito]

Jockie: is that spot good for leather too?

[hawksbane]

bah, I find humans so boring

[squirrelfanatic]

I stumbled across a nice place to get Scales and Fangs (Tier 3). The Salamander Drakes in Blazeridge Steppes drop those. A larger group of them can be found in the South-East of the map, down in the river. Head West from the waypoint (Twin Sisters Crossing I think) and you'll run directly into them. The Drakes are easy to bunch up and don't hit very hard, if you avoid their fiery breath. With my Warrior, I could easily take 4-5 at a time and hit them with AOE bleeding from my sword.

The only caveat is that you might run into people that try to get the Renown Heart in that area, which involves luring Drakes into nets. The Drakes turn non-hostile in the process, making them a little bit hard to kill (bleed helps here as it can kill the Drakes even if they are non-aggressive, pissing off annoying Drake-thieves is a bonus).

[Jockie]

Jockie: is that spot good for leather too?

Not particularly, the sheer rate of the respawns means you'll get some though.

[Bobtree]

I may have written it in the wrong thread, but the fine crafting materials overlap essentially means you shouldn't pick more than one equipment discipline: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/foru...l=1#post194559

[hawksbane]

Good point, I have a theory that to level 75 crafting levels for two equipment disciplines (leatherworker & huntsman for me) you need 3 of each fine crafting material. I haven't tested this theory yet because my huntsman needs another 20 levels before I do.

[frightlever]

I have armorsmithing and weaponsmithing both in around 320-325 ish as a lvl 68 warrior. Don't anticipate any problem taking them both to completion but don't see the point until my warrior will benefit from the upgrades. Might even use the last discipline levels to bring me to 80. Hmm.

Thing with crafting is it doesn't make money, generally. You can buy most items off the TP for, relatively speaking, peanuts. Perhaps that changes at 80.

So the "Jerich's GW2 Crafting Guide" table that shows how useful certain disciplines are to different professions is fine and all but it shows that jeweller is a good discipline for any class, however there are a ton of jewellers already pumping out trinkets while also competing against Karma merchants and drops. Same with every discipline really. You can't settle into a niche crafting at a profit and the only items which are remarkable are legendaries which are soulbound on acquire aren't they? So you can't sell them.

I sold a set of lvl 65 Carrion Gladiator armor (that's a "rare" set using a karma recipe and requiring the 15 heavy bones for the insignia) I made for around 25s per piece. Or I could have put the bits that went into each piece on the TP for 2-3 times that.

I suppose that crafting is an end-game diversion rather than any kind of necessity.

[harhis23]

Crafting may somewhat an "end-game" diversion, but still this is essential to GW2 player's endeavor in every level of the game. As we are all aware of that GW2 has eight crafting disciplines, though only two disciplines can be used simultaneously. These disciplines are designed for the players to be able to create useful items.

[frightlever]

Crafting may somewhat an "end-game" diversion, but still this is essential to GW2 player's endeavor in every level of the game. As we are all aware of that GW2 has eight crafting disciplines, though only two disciplines can be used simultaneously. These disciplines are designed for the players to be able to create useful items.

Why's it essential? I can buy anything I need without taking a single discipline. (I don't NEED a legendary).

Oh, found a nice spot for thick blood around and north of Toade's Head in Sparkfly Fen - there are vampire bats that were dropping it consistently and Skelks nearby as well.

[harhis23]

Well, for me it is essential. Not only in creating items but it also helped me in my level progression. Plus the XP I gain when I fully level up a certain crafting discipline, that really means a lot to me.