Preparing for the Year of the Dog

By Alexander Wilkie on January 29, 2018 | Columns | 0

The Lunar New Year is fast approaching, and as always, Divinity's Reach will enter a period of celebration and festivities to mark the upcoming Year of the Dog. These celebrations take place in the Crown Pavillion, and are focused around obtaining the Divine Lucky Envelopes.

The Lunar New Year is one of the most profitable events for minimal effort that Guild Wars 2 has to offer, with the event focused around obtaining the Divine Lucky Envelopes. These envelopes contain various drops that are worth small to large amounts of raw gold, along with treats, firecrackers and a chance at the new Lantern Backpieces. Players obtain the envelopes mainly from Phaedra in the Crown Pavilion, a merchant who sells them for one gold a pop. Each account can buy up to 16 per day, and each envelope is guaranteed to contain at least 88 silver and 88 copper, recouping most the costs whilst providing chances at even greater returns along with significant Essence of Luck.

The second way to obtain these envelopes is through Dragon Ball, a game that comes as part of the festivities. In this arena, you take on other players with a variety of unique skills, gathering power ups and health orbs in an all out fight to the death. Kills reward 20 points, with both teams aiming to be the first to reach 500. The daily achievements and event achievements reward you for your wins with Little Lucky Envelopes, items with a smaller chance at the high tier rewards that cannot be sold. You can also obtain Coffer of the Dragon Ball Champion, which along with having some more little envelopes, can be traded in to Phaedra to purchase even more of the Divine Lucky Envelopes past the daily cap.

Once you have the Divine Lucky Envelopes, your choice comes down to whether you want to open them or to sell them directly on the trading post. For me personally, I always buy my 16 a day and sell them, which nets between a 30%-40% profit. Across the whole festival doing this method, assuming the event once again runs for four weeks, you can cash out with a cool 168 gold PROFIT by the end of the event, and all that is completely free (since selling the envelopes makes back what you pay for them and more). Of course, some players prefer the high risk option of praying to RNGesus, and opening the envelopes for a chance at the lucrative rewards inside. If you decide to take this method, the most important thing to remember is to max out your Magic Find (take a look at the GW2wiki for some methods on how to do this easily) as each envelope opening is affected by your Magic Find. With some great luck, this method can prove even more profitable than selling the envelopes, and also provides players with plenty of Luck. If you manage to get extremely high levels of Magic Find in the Silverwastes or through other methods, it can even be profitable to buy the envelopes from the TP, but do this at your own risk!

Lunar New Year might be a fairly small event in the scheme of Guild Wars 2, but it certainly comes with some of the best free rewards. Across all game modes you will also get a 15% Magic Find increase, and for players who have maxed out their Luck you can spend it on Red Lanterns for your Guild Hall, a beautiful and cheap decoration that doubles as a crafting component for various other Lunar New Year themed decorations. Good luck and a happy new year to all of you!