Guild Wars 2

I have a level 80, and one of the mystic forge recipes required a chef level of 400. So I decided to undertake the daunting craft of chef, and fixed a goal to level it from 1 to 400 in a week or under (I am now at lvl300 in just under 3 days). On the 1st day itself, i encountered problems when i realized i was spending more of my coin on acquiring the ingredients for recipes than i was comfortable with. i tried to follow a guide online, however i always ended up losing a couple silver for each crafting lvl i gained. for example, chocolate bars on the TP currently are about 1s 50c, and the finished products (foods) i made i would end up selling for ~10c or usually way less. it took me until i hit craft lvl100 when i realized i was wasting coin needlessly. for instance, i would buy out like 50 sticks of butter for 20s, gain like only a few crafting lvls, then another recipe would require more sticks of butter so i’d buy out more and more, and other ingredients that were even more steep in prices. I then attempted and failed horribly at gathering some of the ingredients required, for instance chocolate bars and chili peppers (this btw is 3s 50c on TP). in farming for chocolate, i got about 20 loot bags & opened up each one, only not a single choco bar. so i looked online and found there was indeed a method to save money while leveling my cooking. because TBH, i recently hit 80, and now have 20 gold in my pockets, and so i am very frugal, and i hate-HATE-having to spend more than 1 silver on a single cooking ingredient, when my daily income is already drained by me constantly WPing my way across maps (have places to be!!) or spending 20s+ a day on repairing my gear because i do not know what the word ‘survivability’ means (joke, i do, i’m just bad).

So leveling to 1-100 for me, i decided the ingredients were very hard to find or even attempting to would eat up a huge chunk of my time, and at the same time i realized that yes, obviously, i am going to lose money VERY fast if the finished product does not sell on the TP for more than it costs (in like 95% of the cases this is true at least for cooking profession i found, which is ridiculous!) But then i thought, what about the other 5%? and what about ingredients that you can craft/gather/find yourself, and how will that change how much coin you waste in leveling crafting? what i found is that while lvling cooking craft is certainly not as profitable as say running dungeons, shockingly if you use the right approach it will come close.

rather than a guide, this is what i personally did to level from 100-300, while at the same time , maximizing my profit gained from selling finished products(food), and minimizing loss accrued from purchasing/obtaining ingredients needed to craft said products. hence, the recipes i recommend (which i myself actually used in leveling) are concerned with saving your coin instead of wasting it needlessly. of course, there are methods to level your cooking that might be faster, yet end up costing you bucketloads of coin. that is not to say that in lvling my craft i was unconcerned with time, because i factored in waypoint (WP) costs, as well as how long it would take me to travel to a region in a map if i had to gather ingredients or visit vendors. for the most part, this guide assumes you are patient and are willing to spend a little more time with gathering the ingredients with the result of earning money, like i was, instead of losing it in the process of leveling this craft.

also note: in calculating profit i factored in TP listing fees (10%) and WP costs, if wherever i need to go is close enough to lion’s arch (LA) where i leveled my cooking, then there’s no WP cost because i just walked it up. this also assumes you will try to minimize use of that luxury, because truthfully if you’re WPing like mad, say 10 times in order to cover the mats for a certain recipe, then you’re really not interested in making any significant profit. but even if you were to do that, you would still be able to do a lot more than break even, at least in the long term. also note that the only time you would have to gather, according to this guide and the only time i forced myself to gather, was in the case of node farms which, imho is EASY easy gathering!! a brief explanation of NFs, for those who don’t know: basically regions on a map where there’s a concentrated bunch of the same ingredients that give ~10 gatherings from what i got, and plus they respawn once a day. the only other time i forced myself to travel to maps was when i visited karma vendors to buy ingredients.

as stated above, this guide starts at lvl100 because that is the point when i realized i had blundered, and ended up losing about 60 silver before realizing there was a method by which i could actually have GAINED 60 silver instead (or a comparable amount, or at least cushioned my losses somewhat). i am currently lvl300 but i am certain this method will work to get me up to master lvl400, i will post my results for that soon.

ALSO some technicalities: i have 1-3 listed recipes at benchmark lvls, the preferred & recommended one is always at the top and in bold, and i try to explain my reason below it if needed. i calculate costs for 25x of a particular item, so if i say profit is 40copper per each finished product sold that works out to 10 silver total profit. you can buy more or less than that amount, depending on whether its a profit/gain for each recipe, i expect you to have a level head on your shoulders!! unless otherwise stated, place orders on ingredients from the TP, if possible. do NOT buy instantly if you want to maximize profit gain. also, this is probably painfully obvious, but you must SELL the finished products on the TP at the lowest seller price in order to achieve the listed profit. only the recommended recipes of lvl100 show my calculations, you can check my math on the others. and of course all are dependant that the current TP prices for buying/selling cooking-related items do not change a great deal over time. This btw is the site i used to determine which recipes were more profitable to use while lvling:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chef/Recipes_by_Level

CHEF LVLING & PROFIT GUIDE 100-300 (personal method):

-100-

1. Pile of Simple Chili Seasoning =
   estimated profit on selling finished product:
   (79c lowest selling price – 10% TP selling fee) = 71c sell profit/ea
   buy cost (ingredients): Pile of Tangy Seasoning (11c)+ Pile of Paprika (12c)+ Bag of Sugar(8c)=31c total buy cost/ea
   (71c sell profit-31c buy cost)= 40c profit/ea x25= 10s profit
2. Bowl of Sage Stuffing
   (1s61c lowest selling price – 10% TP selling fee) = 1s45c sell profit/ea
   buy cost (ingredients): Sage Leaf(1s20c)+ Onion(6c) = 1s26c total buy cost/ea
   (1.45s sell profit-1.26 buy cost) = 19c profit/ea x25= 4.75s profit
3. Bowl of Cream Soup Base
   (1s34c lowest selling price – 10% TP selling fee) = 1s21c sell profit/ea
   buy cost (ingredients): Glass of Buttermilk (8c)+ Bowl of Roux (2c)+ Pile of Salt and Pepper(21c)+ Bowl of Poultry Stock(75s)=1s06c total buy cost/ea
   (1.21s sell profit-1.06 buy cost)= 15c profit/ea x25 = 3s75c profit

-125-

1. Bowl of Grilled Bananas with Passion Fruit Sauce (3c-45c)=42c loss/ea= 10.5s loss
2. Bowl of Strawberry Pie Filling (8c-24c) = 16c loss/ea = (4s loss – ~6s WP cost) = ~10s loss
3. Banana Cream Pie (13c-72c)=59c loss/ea = 14.75s loss
   —
   **note: with all recipe options at this benchmark level, you are going to end up losing some amount of coin. the preceding were the top three recipes that i found minimized my loss. also note, the recipe with a greater loss (#1) is recommended over the one with lesser total loss (#2) item because one of its ingredients costs karma, thus it costs basically nothing to buy in bulk. Karma metchant to sell bananas is in gendarran fields so if you are situated in LA like i am you don’t even have to WP, just walk. the other has strawberries as an ingredient. you can harvest strawberries from NFs. it is possible to acquire many strawberries relatively fast this way, however it requires both time to travel and/or to fight mobs as well as to gather, plus the WP cost is included. if you don’t WP at all, which I highly doubt, you would only end up losing ~4s. the 6s WP cost does not include round trip.

-150-

1. Stuffed Zucchini (2c-26c) =24c loss/ea = 6s loss
2. Grilled Portobello Mushroom (2c-38c) = 36c loss/ea = 9s loss
3. Loaf of Rosemary Bread (2c-86c) = 84c loss/ea = 21s loss
   —
   **note: again, all recipes of this level will result in a loss for you. i recommend buying the bare minimum of ingredients for the preceding recipe that you need to hit lvl175, at which point you can use the listed recipe below to start gaining coin again.

-175-

1. Pile of Stirfry Spice Mix – (3.83s-3.19s) = 64c profit/ea = 16s profit
2. Bowl of Grape Pie Filling – (10c-16c)= 6c loss/ea = 1.5s loss – 4s (WP cost) = 5.5s loss
3. Handful of Trail Mix – (2c-25c) = 23c loss/ea = 5.75s loss – 5s (WP cost) = 10.75s loss
   —
   **note: i went to all grape locations listed for option #2 and obtained ~20 grapes. these do reset daily, i believe, so you might need to wait an additional day to achieve the number of grapes that you need or are aiming for. because i expect you to gather these yourself, i do include the 4s WP cost.

-200-

1. Bowl of Avocado Salsa (2.01s-1.07s)=94c profit/ea= 23.5s profit-2s (WP cost) = 21.5s profit

-225-

1. Pile of Pumpkin Pie Spice (70c-30c)=40c profit/ea = 10s profit
2. Raspberry Pie (1.79s-0.59s)=1.2s profit/ea= 30s profit – ~6s (WP cost) = ~24s profit
   —
   **note: this is another instance of when a recipe yielding less total profit is preferred over one yielding more. option #1 is a more reliable choice because you can just buy off all ingredients from TP, and from a karma merchant. to get nutmeg seeds simply head out the north portal of LA and walk to the karma merchant. close by to me so i did not include a WP cost. option #2 takes longer IMHO but is more rewarding. it requires 4 raspberries per each, so will take you longer to gather them. thus option #1 is a much reliable and faster approach. though choose #2 if you are not constrained by time.

-250-

1. Fancy Veggie Pizza (1.8s-0.45s)= 1.35s/ea = 33.75s profit – ~8s (WP cost) = ~25.75s profit
   —
   **note: i managed to harvest ~25 spinach in a day. if you visit all locations listed you should have a similar number. Also note that the recipe is for 2x pizza. hence 1s sell cost x 2= 2s – 10% (TP listing fee) = 1.8s as listed above.

-275-

1. Bowl of Blackberry Pie Filling (1.56-0.86) = 70c profit/ea = 17.5s profit
2. Bowl of Orange Coconut Frosting (1.60-0.90) = 70c profit/ea = 17.5s profit
3. Bowl of Eztlitl Stuffing (1.51-0.76) = 75c profit/ea = 18.75s profit – ~3s (WP cost) = ~15.75s profit
   —
   **note: while option #3 does have slighter profit per each item sold, it has 2 ingredients you need to place buy orders on, in addition to 1 ingredient that you have to run to a certain map to obtain (you add TIME if you haven’t discovered it already or add WP cost if you have, hence making this a less preferred option). This leaves the options of fetching either of two bulk ingredients (costing karma), lemons for option #1 or coconuts for #2. My base of operations is LA, where i have my personal cooking center all set up so for me basically both were a viable choice. cocnuts can be found on the northmost tip of bloodtide coast, which is directly south of LA. if you make use of the WPs in the city (since you can fast travel for free cost) then you will also end up paying nothing towards WP costs. either way works, but as i said the cooking center for LA is located north, and a quick run to the karma merchant in gendarran fields takes literally 30 seconds to buy the lemons once you exit the portal to north of LA. to run to the coconut vendor it would take slightly longer.

by now you should be lvl300. if you followed the recommended recipes this would be the amount of coins you spent in leveling cooking from 100-300:
84 silver and 25 copper GAINED!!!

Thank you kindly for taking the time to put this together.

actually, i maxed out my cooking a while ago, just didn’t get any time to post my results for leveling from 300-400. anyway, here’s the rest of the guide that i hastily put together. i personally found that leveling from 300+ you actually gain less experience per item crafted (i might be wrong), so for each benchmark lvl I suggest you craft at least 30+ items of each bolded recipe. i will probably update this guide sometime soon. it is rather unfinished at the moment.

CHEF LVLING & PROFIT GUIDE 300-400 (personal method):

-300-

1. Eggplant Fritter (46c-96c) = 50c loss/ea = 15s total loss
   —
   **note: this is basically the best option to minimize your loss. with all recipes at this benchmark lvl you will lose some amount of coin.

-325-

1. Loaf of Raspberry Peach Bread (4.43s-3.05s)=1.38s profit/ea = 41.40s profit
2. Raspberry Peach Compote (0.35-0.70)= 35c loss/ea = 10.50s loss

-350-

1. Stuffed Artichoke with Tropical Dressing – (4.86- 3.70) = 1.14s profit/ea = 34.2s profit
2. Super Veggie Pizza (1.01s-0.70s)=31c profit/ea = 9.30s profit
3. Bowl of Spicy Veggie Chili – ~7-10c loss/es
   —
   **note: cost calculated for option #1:
   sage stuffing – 1.10s (buy order)
   bottle of tropical dressing – 2.50s (buyout)
   Bowl of Fancy Tangy Sautee Mix – 8c (buyout)
   
   also, you would need to gather the artichokes yourself. for option #2, my suggestion is to place buy orders on the fancy veggie pizza from TP. if you decided to craft it yourself, you would be able to achieve slightly greater profit (~5s more) but I simply don’t believe it’s worth it, especially since you’d have to invest more time to gather/find all the mats with such a low return.

-375-

1. Bowl of Mixed Berry Pie Filling (2.26 – 1.80)- ~46c profit/ea = 13.8s profit – 3s (WP cost) = 10.8s profit
2. Bowl of Peach Pie Filling – ~20c profit/ea
3. Bowl of Artichoke Soup – ~0c profit/loss
   —
   **note: for the 1st option, this assumes you harvest the strawberries as they are the only ingredient easily found in NFs. if you placed buy orders for them instead you would instead make a negligible amount of profit on each finished product sold (~4c/ea) but would still break even at the least.

total profit from leveling chef 300-400: 71.40s

Thus your total estimated profit from leveling chef from 100-400 would be about 1 gold 56 silver. not bad considering your main goal should have been to max out your craft.