Best Methods For Farming Volatile Magic in GW2

Volatile Magic is a currency exclusive to Living World Season 4, so naturally the main source for it is doing the meta events in all 6 Season 4 maps (Domain of Istan, Sandswept Isles, Domain of Kourna, Jahai Bluffs, Thunderhead Peak and Dragonfall)

It is used in a lot of ways, but mainly for purchasing Trophy Shipments, which contain t5 and t6 crafting materials, needed for Legendary weapons.

There are some other ways to earn Volatile which are worth mentioning (listed below), plus we’ll also cover some tips and tricks further into this guide:

• Purchasing LW4 materials with Eternal Ice (second best method)
• Mining LW4 materials
• Collecting Volatile Magic orbs (requires some Mastery skills)
• Purchasing LW4 materials with Jorbreakers (only during Dragon Bash Festival)

Let’s have a closer look at all these to make the most out of our Volatile Magic farming.

Best Method: Doing Meta Events in LW4 Maps

All LW4 metas grant a decent amount of Volatile Magic and they also reward you with LW4 materials, which can be consumed to obtain more Volatile. The only con is there’s a limit to the rewards you can earn from them per day, but it’s totally worth giving them a go.

Some metas begin at the same time, but some others are perfect to do by joining a “meta-train” squad in LFG, so that you can do several metas in a row.

Also, all maps except Dragonfall have Renown Heart quests, which you can complete to unlock Karma merchants once per day, who in turn sell small bundles of LW4 materials.

Dragonfall is the most recommended meta, since it consists of a long series of events, a big fight against Kralkatorrik, and some bonus bosses at the end.

Tip: The chests rewarded by events in Dragonfall can only be opened with a specific key, which in turn you can obtain by doing events. So it is recommended that you try finding a freshly started map when doing Dragonfall, in order to do as many events as you can.

Method #2: Purchasing LW4 Materials with Eternal Ice

Karma and Eternal Ice vendors in Bjora Marches and Eye of the North sell packs of LW4 materials for 2688 Karma and 75 Eternal Ice Shards.

There’s no daily limit to this purchase, so you can just farm Eternal Ice by mining nodes in Bjora Marches, and doing its 2 metas.

Eternal Ice is also rewarded for doing Drizzlewood Coast’s metas.

Tip: You should level up all Essence Manipulation masteries before getting into Eternal Ice farming. They are needed to open most of the chests that spawn in Bjora Marches, especially the ones with the biggest rewards.

Method #3: Mining LW4 Materials

Another way of obtaining Season 4 materials is directly mining them from nodes in all LW4 maps:

• Kralkatite in Domain of Istan
• Difluorite in Sandswept Isles
• Inscribed Shards in Domain of Kourna
• Mistonium in Jahai Bluffs
• Branded Mass in Thunderhead Peak
• Mistborn Motes in Dragonfall

If you have multiple characters, you can log in with all of them to mine and maximize your farming profit.

Tip: It’s highly recommended that you purchase either Infinite Volatile Magic Gathering Tools whenever they’re on sale at the Gem Store, or a Glyph of Volatility that you can apply to an unbreakable gathering tool.

This way you will earn bonus Volatile Magic when gathering any material in the world. If you can afford none of them, you can purchase finite Volatile Gathering Tools with Karma from some vendors, like Crystal Bloom Quartermasters in Dragonfall.

Method #4: Collecting Volatile Magic Orbs

With Season 4, Reality Rifts were introduced into all of Tyria.

These are short flying “minigames” that can only be played when you have the skyscale mount, and they require the Rift Repair mastery to be activated.

They consist of a trail of Volatile Magic orbs that spawn when the player flies close to the rift with their skyscale. They all must be collected to close the rift. When reaching the end of the trail, you will obtain 8-10 extra Volatile and a Mistborn Mote.

There are also floating trails of Volatile Magic orbs scattered through all LW4 maps and Grothmar Valley. These don’t require the Rift Repair mastery, but they do need the Volatile Magic Resonance one.

There’s a limit of 250 Volatile Magic Orbs you can collect per day, but since some orbs grant more Magic than others, it makes a decent farming method.

Method #5: Purchasing LW4 Materials with Jorbreakers

You can also purchase stacks of 50 LW4 materials in exchange for 1 Jorbreaker each, from the weekly Dragon Bash merchant.

The Dragon Bash festival takes place in Hoelbrak around June, and it lasts approximately 3 weeks (depending on the year).

Jorbreakers and Zhaitaffy are the festival’s main currency.

1000 Zhaitaffy make 1 Jorbreaker.

It’s highly recommended that you visit the Holographic Dragon Arena, since it’s a fun event that you can farm continuously during the festival.