Earning Money for the HoM and/or Profit

[Confused? Start here.]

If you've read the other posts, you know that various Hall of Monuments progress can take a fair amount of money: for miniatures, for elite armor, for certain titles, and possibly for weapons and hero armor upgrades. You may be wondering "just where am I going to get all that money?"

Well, the good news is, I can tell you how to earn at least some money. I don't earn money at the speed that hardcore farmers do, but I do earn enough when motivated that I've rarely had any trouble having money for lockpicks and elite armor (and my SO and I have double-handedly stocked our little guild hall pretty well to boot). My assumption here is that you probably are not a hardcore farmer, so my way may work a lot better for you.

First off, there are a number of good sources of steady income that can also help you towards various titles/monument statues: vanquishing, filling storybooks, any dungeon runs for title or storybook progress, and Zaishen missions and/or bounties are the main ones.

Every zone you vanquish has a cash reward depending on the number of mobs in that area. It's not a lot per zone, but it adds up, especially since in hard mode, you're more likely to get good drops as well. The drops and the rewards between them can easily keep you in lockpicks, if nothing else. In hard mode, enemies that drop materials are also likely to drop them both more often and in larger quantity. Those materials may be useful to get armor or weapons, but they also can be sold to the vendor or to players for additional income as well.

Every storybook turned in awards you cold hard cash, and most give rank title points. The Flameseeker Chronicles do not award any rank title points, but offer more cash to make up for it. (Books also give you an experience reward, so if you're short on skill points, it's one way to get more.)

Dungeons usually offer a fairly good amount of money both via drops and the associated quest's rewards. Also of note: there are a number of rare weapon/off-hand skins that only drop in dungeons, so if you happen to get lucky, you might be able to sell an item for quite a lot of platinum. To see what items are worth money, I highly recommend the price check forums at Guild Wars Guru and/or incGamers. Another way to get a handle on what items are popular (and what they're worth) is to go to Kamadan and watch the trade spam (concentrated heavily in districts 1 and 2). Lion's Arch is another spot with a decent amount of trade and is less spammy than Kamadan. One of those outposts is also where you'll want to go to try to sell an item if you happen to find one worth selling.

Taking Zaishen missions and/or bounties is also good way to earn a steady stream of money, rank title rewards, and also Zcoins, which can be traded in for useful things like equipment bags and elite skill tomes (if you play alts, very handy) and unlocking rare pets in the Zaishen menagerie. If you don't need any more large or heavy equipment bags or elite skill tomes, those can potentially be sold to other players. (It's a lot easier to sell an elite skill tome than an equipment pack as a rule, though the equipment packs are worth more.)

Aside from things like that, the number one way I make extra money is by farming for materials. There are two ways you can accomplish this: finding a way to solo somewhere in either normal or hard mode, which allows you to get all the drops, or, in the course of doing other things, taking some extra time to kill extra mobs wherever you are instead of only moving in a straight path to where you're going. The latter does not earn you as much money as quickly, but if you're in a zone where mobs frequently drop materials or material-heavy trophies, it can add up pretty quickly.

I'm hesitant to suggest a precise farm or build, because it really depends on both what and how you play. Instead, my suggestion is to take a quick look at the material vendor (and the rare materials one, as well), and then wiki for what materials come from where. Feathers, dust, granite (especially now), iron, and plant fibers are generally all worth selling to the vendor (and/or to players). Most rare materials (not all) are also worth a decent amount at the vendor. Silk is one big exception, and you'll get a lot of it from armor-type salvage items, but that can be (regular, not expert) salvaged into small piles of cloth or dust if you feel you have enough in storage.

Even if you don't farm, salvage every item not worth a decent amount of money (I usually set that around 50g per item) for materials from zones where the mobs are level 20 or higher. Most items are worth expert salvaging, for the chance at getting rare materials (you will still get common materials, but usually in enough quantity to be worth more than the price of the salvage charge). You can check items out on the wiki if you're not sure. And while some trophies may be worth saving (rare drops in case Nick wants them, common drops in case you need a weapon for yourself or a hero), many of them salvage into materials that sell really well.

Items marked "highly salvageable" are nearly always worth expert salvaging for materials unless they contain a modifier (prefix/suffix/inscription) you really want, or gold items with a particularly high sell price (which may be higher than what you'd get in materials). If they contain a mod you want, you may want to consider using a perfect salvage kit to retrieve that modifier before expert salvaging (or selling) them. If the "highly salvageable" comes from an inscription on an item that gives you a type of material you don't care about (say, wood or bone), it may be worth salvaging the inscription instead and storing it for placement on other items later. I use them on gem-containing items from Nightfall.

It's also worthwhile to keep around an extra stack (outside your material storage) of some regular materials and sell from that as it fills up, so that you never yourself are short of something you might need for an armor or a consumable. I keep stacks of cloth, hide, feathers, granite, dust, plant fibers, scale, bone, wood, and chitin right now, and sometimes I keep an additional full stack (250 items) extra of something I know I'm about to use for armor (as many armors require 300 or more of a material). I mostly sell cloth, wood, bone, and chitin to the regular merchant, as they're rarely worth more than their base price, but it's always worth checking. (I should note that I have all the available storage panes; this may not be practical for everyone. The additional storage panes may be worth investing in, however.)

Pre-level-20 mobs do drop items worth salvaging as well, but it's much less likely to be worth expert salvaging them. Armor-type salvage items that are marked as armor level 20+ are worth expert salvaging, but most of the other armors and trophies are not, since they give fewer regular materials and more rarely give rare ones.