SotO Currencies

So, you’re crafting the legendary Obsidian armor. Sweet! But you need SotO map currencies and rift essences, specifically:

• Static Charge ➡️ Case of Captured Lightning
• Pinch of Stardust ➡️ Pouch of Stardust
• Calcified Gasp ➡️ Clot of Congealed Screams
• Fine Rift Essence , Masterwork Rift Essence , Rare Rift Essence ➡️ Amalgamated Rift Essence

You need a lot, so let’s focus on processes on how to accumulate them. First we discuss the target items that we need, then Rift Essences, then map currencies.

Remember! This is legendary crafting we’re talking about. It’ll take time. See my general notes on legendary crafting (TODO).

There is a TL;DR version at the bottom of the page, which includes my current process.

Target items

You need one of each of the following for each armor piece. Note! This is not a full Obsidian Armor crafting guide. Some crucial stuff is omitted, we focus on SotO/Rift currencies in this post. Here is a simple tree of the target items for one piece of armor:

• Gift of Mighty Prosperity or Gift of Magical Prosperity , depending on piece
• Gift of Expertise :
  • Eldritch Scroll
  • 50 Obsidian Shard
  • Cube of Stabilized Dark Energy
  • 12 Amalgamated Rift Essence :
    • 3000 , 1200 , 600 (or 250 , 100 , 50 each)
    • 600 Glob of Ectoplasm
• Gift of Stormy Skies :
  • 5 Case of Captured Lightning
  • 5 Pouch of Stardust
  • 5 Clot of Congealed Screams
  • Gift of the Astral Ward :
    • Map completion gifts: 1 Gift of Skywatch Archipelago , 1 Gift of Amnytas , 1 Gift of Inner Nayos
    • Gift of Persistence : 250 , 250 , 250 , and 250 Ancient Coin

Here is a link to GW2Efficiency’s crafting calculator with one Gift of Expertise and one Gift of Stormy Skies , using own materials. With this you can track how close you are to your next armor piece with regards to these gifts.

Rift Essences

You can get rift essences by rift hunting and from convergences. That’s it. The wiki page on Rift Essence is good. The math is spelled out here.

Convergences

There are two Convergences in the game, one in SotO and one in JW. Both are pretty fun. Both have public instances every 3 hours, private squads can enter anytime. Completing one convergence takes 15-30 minutes, depending on the group.

Both of the convergences give good loot, but we only focus on rift essences. We assume you have to SotO mastery “Convergence Mastery”.

Loot common to both convergences:

• Repeatable achievements (transfer essence, beat enemies, etc.): Nugget of Rift Essence :
  • On average: 18 , 7 , 3
• Daily challenge mode reward: Convergence Challenge Mode: Gold (or silver, or copper)
  • Based on boss: 24-150 , 10-60 , 5-30
• _3x weekly achievements: “Convergences: Inner Nayos”, “Convergences: Mount Balrior”, both yield in total:
  • 1 Unstable Rift Motivation
  • 3 Convergence Extraction
    • Each: 250 , 100 , 50

Outer Nayos loot:

• Once per day: Convergence: Hero's Choice Chest
  • Choose one of: 100 , 40 , 20
• Repeatable Map Meta-Event Rewards:
  • Based on participation: 25-50 , 10-20 , 5-10
  • “Rift Essence Extractor” buff (see Rift Hunting)

Mount Balrior loot:

• Once per day: Convergence: Mount Balrior Commander's Choice Chest
  • Choose one of: 100 , 40 , 20
• Repeatable Map Meta-Event Rewards:
  • Based on participation: 25-50 , 10-20 , 5-10
  • “Rift Essence Extractor” buff (see Rift Hunting)

Rift Hunting

Please see “Rift Hunting” in Wiki. We assume you have SotO mastery “Rift Mastery”.

Weekly rift hunting rewards first.

Both SotO and JW have achievement category “Weekly Rift Hunting”. SotO has 3 SotO maps and 3 rotating maps in prior expansion zones. JW always has the same 4 JW maps. This is a total of 10 weekly Rift Hunting maps (though fun varies!). Completing 5 rift hunts of any tier in a map yields 6 Rift Extraction , each giving 5 , 5 , and 2 on average.

Repeatable rift hunting rewards next.

You don’t need them, but you may be interested in Motivations. They can be crafted or bought from TP. See below how these are used!

Motivation	Track rifts	TP Cost
Fine Rift Motivation	Tier 1	3 38 0
Masterwork Rift Motivation	Tier 2	3 99 77
Rare Rift Motivation	Tier 3	4 80 72

Before using the rift hunting action, you must choose which tier you’re tracking. By default this is Tier 1. Double-clicking any motivation will change the tier. This does not consume the motivation!

The difference between the tiers is how tough the enemies are, the location of the rifts, and the tier of rift essences rewarded (the amount stays the same). Beating the rift’s boss yields 6-14 / / .Beating a rift’s pre-event always yields 3-7 , though.

Before (and during?) rift’s boss, you can also put a motivation in the rift (consuming it!) to yield additional essence if the boss is defeated. If you have the convergence buff “Rift Essence Extractor”, it’s 30-50 / / (and without the buff, only 17-32 / / ) (so maybe it’s bet not to use motivations without the buff active, as the motivations are quite pricey). This bonus is personal, i.e. each player wanting this bonus has to put their own motivation into the rift (TODO: citation needed!).

NOTE! Using motivations in Tier 1 is optional, but in Tier 2 and Tier 3 someone has to use a motivation to lure out the boss.

How long does a rift take? TODO Some numbers here. But a lot of the time is also used traveling between rift locations. Please see the Rift Hunting wiki page for maps of all the maps’ rift spawn locations. JW has good maps:

• Mistburned Barrens has only two Tier 1 rift locations pretty close to each other (Beetle recommended)
• Mistburned Barrens has only two Tier 2 rift locations pretty close to each other (Skyscale recommended, Warclaw should work)
• Bava Nisos has only two Tier 3 rift locations (TODO But I haven’t confirmed this personally)

Trading Post?

Ok, you can buy rift essences from TP, but it is prohibitively expensive. Buying 1 Rift Essence Coffer (for 79 ) and 1 Unstable Rift Motivation (for 7 64 44 ). These combine into a Unlocked Rift Essence Coffer which according to Wiki’s drop rate research drops 38 , 15 , and 7 on average. You’d need to buy 100 of these to make one Amalgamated Rift Essence .

SotO Map Currencies (and the associated rare crafting materials)

Sidenote! You can get the crafting materials straight from SotO meta-events! Both Skywatch Arhcipelago’s and Amnytas’ meta-events occur every 2 hours, and Inner Nayos has 3 meta-events (as long as pre-events are progressed by players). Each of these yields daily one rare crafting material related to that map.

How to get the map currencies.

Magic Baubles

Each map has Latent Magic floating around, each gives 2-4 / / . Gathering these are limited to 100 of the currency per map (or 300 in Inner Nayos) per account.

Arcane Chests

Greater Arcane Chests reset daily per account. Lesser Arcane Chests reset on new map instance per character.

Skywatch Archipelago and Inner Nayos have many Greater Arcane Chests. I use (the name of the BlishHUD marker pack here) to gather them daily. Amnytas has… three? And one of them is behind the event that requires 5 people. Not very farmable. I have one character parked at one of the greater chests, though. I can run Skywatch Archipelago’s 10 Greater chests in less than 10 minutes, and Inner Nayos’ 5 Greater chests in 3 minutes (Roller Beetle and Griffon help out a lot).

Amnytas map closes after meta-event, so you can park multiple characters at Bastion of the Natural, and check on them every two hours. There’s 4 possible spawn points for the chest, you’ll soon get the hang of checking them places.

Greater Arcane Chests yield 4-18 / / , Lesser Arcane Chests yield 2-10 / / .

Note! The chests contain a lot of other goodies as well! E.g. Ancient Coin and rare gear.

Events

All of the events give map currency. I don’t have any math for this, yet.

Lantern Runs

Sidenote! You have to do the lantern achievements for the the map gifts (or map completion, but it’s a lot easier to do lantern runs). After you have all the map gifts for all the Gift of the Astral Ward you need, you can convert the rest into map currencies.

Hot tip for lantern runs! Things you can do while powering: be on your mount, dismount, move, use map. Things you can’t do while powering (will cancel): mount up, use any F thing (e.g. upraft generator), use waypoint. Once you practive a bit, you can really whiz by the lanterns on your mount 😄 The visuals are wierd at times, but you’ll get a feel for it in a couple of runs, I’m sure!

It’s easiest to do these if you follow an overlay path, and do one map in one sitting. Otherwise you’ll have to keep track of which lanterns you’ve already done. And don’t miss any, or prepare to cross-reference the achievement panel and the wiki for your missing lanterns 😉

Gharr Leadclaw (or the Portable Wizard's Tower Exchange they sell) trades in a lot of stuff, including SotO currencies. You can convert map gifts into 200 Static Charge , 200 Pinch of Stardust , or 100 Calcified Gasp . I can do one lantern run in 10-20 minutes (Inner Nayos is the fastest), so this is fine way of getting the map currencies. The problem is that it’s so boring! 😅 There’s no fighting, and the only rewards you get besides the gift are 1 transmutation charge and 1 exotic piece of gear.

Gharr Leadclaw continued

Gharr does sell SotO map currencies for other stuff as well: Rift Essences. You trade in 35 / / to get 10 / / .

Let’s calculate. With Tier 1 rifts, your essence rewards are: 3-7 for the pre-event, 6-14 for the boss, and 30-50 with motivation+buff (again, not using a motivation without a buff). Let’s calculate without a moticvation, and let’s say it’s a total 15 per rift on average. Running between the Mistburned Barrens’s two Tier 1 rifts should be quick. (TODO I don’t have data, but I guess) you can average 1 rift / 3 minutes 🤷‍♀️. So in the 15 minutes you’d do a lantern run, you can do 5 rift hunts, which yields 75 ➡️ 20 / / . With tier 1 motivation + buff this increases to 275 ➡️ 70 / /

Not as lucrative as the lantern runs - when only looking at rift essence. But I give you 2 excellent counter-arguments: 1️⃣ Rifts and their mobs drop loot/xp, and 2️⃣ This is a lot more fun and can be done with friends (lantern runs are solitary activities).

TL;DR

Doing both convergences 3 times a week yields enough rift essence for 6 Amalgamated Rift Essence . If you manage that, your Obsidian Armor crafting has other bottlenecks, surely. You can squeeze a bit more out of them by doing each convergence max once per day, but don’t stress that.

Weekly convergence rewards yield total of 2 Unstable Rift Motivation . I think if you’re doing the convergences regularly, you can spare to insta-sell these for 6 0 49 each.

Repeating convergences after those 3 weekly ones is fine. Maybe you’re after the buff to use with your motivations?

The weekly rift hunting achievements net you nice amount of rift essences, too. I don’t like doing Inner Nayos rift hunts, alone at least. JW’s first to maps give out Heart tokens, as well, which is nice. Limitless rift hunting to farm essences may be fine, needs more calculation.

Look into Greater Arcane Chest routes. Maybe you’re interested in Latent Magic routes as well. Maybe alt-park characters at Lesser Arcane Chests, at least in Amnytas. These will provide a slow but steady flow of map currencies for you.

Participate in SotO meta-events, max once per day per map. These will give the rare crafting materials to you, one per day.

Lantern Runs are boring, but efficient way of accumulating map currencies. I prefer Tier 1 Rift hunting and converting into map currencies. I have mixed feelings on using Fine Rift Motivation , they do speed up considerably the essence gathering, but they’re quite expensive.

Rift Essences:

Source of Rift Essences	Amount
Convergence: Outer Nayos	25-50 , 10-20 , 5-10
Convergence: Outer Nayos (Daily)	1x Convergence: Hero's Choice Chest = 100 / 40 / 20
Convergence: Outer Nayos (Weekly) x2/x3	1x/3x Convergence Extraction = 250 , 100 , 50 each = 750 , 300 , 150
Convergence: Outer Nayos (Challenge Mode, daily: Demon Knight, Dreadwing)	1x Convergence Challenge Mode: Gold = 24-50 , 10-20 , 4-10
Convergence: Outer Nayos (Challenge Mode, daily: Hell Sister, Sorrow)	1x Convergence Challenge Mode: Gold = 48-100 , 20-40 , 8-20
Convergence: Outer Nayos (Challenge Mode, daily: Umbriel or first time completion of any boss)	1x Convergence Challenge Mode: Gold = 72-150 , 30-60 , 12-30
Convergence: Mount Balrior	25-50 , 10-20 , 5-10
Convergence: Mount Balrior (Daily)	1x Convergence: Mount Balrior Commander's Choice Chest = 100 / 40 / 20
Convergence: Mount Balrior (Weekly) x2/x3	1x/3x Convergence Extraction = 250 , 100 , 50 each = 750 , 300 , 150
Convergence: Mount Balrior (Challenge Mode, daily: Decima)	1x Convergence Challenge Mode: Gold = 24-50 , 10-20 , 4-10
Convergence: Mount Balrior (Challenge Mode, daily: Ura)	1x Convergence Challenge Mode: Gold = 48-100 , 20-40 , 8-20
Convergence: Mount Balrior (Challenge Mode, daily: Greer or first time completion of any boss)	1x Convergence Challenge Mode: Gold = 72-150 , 30-60 , 12-30
Convergence repeatable achievements	Nugget of Rift Essence = ~18 , ~7 , ~3
Rift Essence Coffer + Unstable Rift Motivation (from both Convergence’s first clear of week, or from TP)	Unlocked Rift Essence Coffer = ~38 , ~15 , ~7
Rift Hunting weekly achievements 5 rifts each in 4 JW maps, 3 SotO maps, 3 other maps 5th in each map yields one extra extraction	60x Rift Extraction = 4-8 , 4-8 , 3-8 each = 24-48 , 24-48 , 18-48 per map = 240-480 , 240-480 , 180-480
Rift Hunt event	3-7
Rift Hunt boss	6-14 / / (Tier 1/2/3)
Rift Hunt motivation+buff	30-50 / / (Tier 1/2/3)

SotO Currencies

Currency	Cost
200 Static Charge	1 Gift of Skywatch Archipelago
10 Static Charge	35 / /
200 Pinch of Stardust	1 Gift of Amnytas
10 Pinch of Stardust	35 / /
100 Calcified Gasp	1 Gift of Inner Nayos
10 Calcified Gasp	35 / /