Guild Wars 2

I’m a level 80 with 400 jewelcrafting (also 400 l/w). I have no idea how to make profit using my crafting professions. I noticed i can make ruby rings and sell them for about 10 silver profit, providing I wait long enough.

Is there a specific way to make money using your professions or is that all there is to it? Small profit by small profit.

If there’s a niche market profit margin, the people who know it won’t tell you about it. You’ll just have to compile your own data based off TP prices of components and what you can make.

I personally thought that was too much work, so I don’t aim to profit with my crafting. It’s just convenient to make stuff when I want it.

CHOAM.7852:

If there’s a niche market profit margin, the people who know it won’t tell you about it. You’ll just have to compile your own data based off TP prices of components and what you can make.

I personally thought that was too much work, so I don’t aim to profit with my crafting. It’s just convenient to make stuff when I want it.

I noticed that, but I’m hoping someone can throw a few pointers my way. Being level 80 is all about money and farming for gear.

I’ve got gear, just not money.

For my self crafting profit does not come from armor/weapons/jewelery/food. I have 400 Armor, Weapon, Jeweler, and cooking.

Edit: Also to note. I can make 10-20 gold a day crafting if i really want to.

An example and some pointers from a crafter who makes money…

First and foremost and by far the most important thing for making money in crafting:
The Masterwork/Fine market is worthless.
Stick to crafting rare items of your chosen professions to find a decent profit.

To make a significant amount of money the next thing to do is find items that are increasing in, not already high in, demand. This doesn’t mean you can’t craft items that are already in high demand, it just means if you do, your profit margin will be considerably lower. For instance, I noticed the demand for honed weapons increasing a few weeks ago but the underlying materials to make them were not spiking yet. Hence, I sunk a significant amount of money into the fine crafting materials for all levels of honed rares (35, 50, 65, 80). Then I spent 1 1/2 days actively farming the wood/ore I needed to make the items and bought all the karma recipes up to L80 to begin crafting said rares. So as to maximize my profit I listed my items a few at a time for the prices they were moving at or slightly below. Over the course of a couple weeks I watched my profits skyrocket as the rare prices increased without having to buy the underlying fine materials which also started jumping in price. If you use this method, don’t just craft a bunch of items and then list them all immediately. Hold on to them and spread it out over time to maximize your profit. Worst case scenario is you guess wrong and probably still end up breaking even.

What also helps is watching the profession forums to see what builds people are currently talking about. If you have a character you can try out the builds yourself and get direct experience to know if it’s viable. If it is, look at the items that would make the build work even better or items that are required to make the build work in the first place.

One last thing I’d like to mention. Keep track of your expenses. The biggest mistake I see a lot of crafters make is not keeping track of these details and all of a sudden they find themselves selling items for lower than the cost spent in making them. This includes keeping track of the prices of items you farm to craft those items. The idea being, why use an item to craft something when you can sell it on the market and make more? Personally I actually use a spreadsheet to keep track of my expenditures and the prices of the materials at the time I craft the item to know exactly what my profit margin is going to be. Don’t forget to include your 15% taxes when selling either.

Making money in crafting is work. It is not something as easy as “Choose X item and craft that to make money”. It takes effort, research and attention to details to find the markets. They are always shifting and never stable so you too can find markets over and over again in which to make money.

Rastamon hits the high points: make rare items to sell, not masterwork or fine. Research the market beforehand. At this point, you don’t have to be as thorough as he suggests — I am not — and you can still make a profit — I do.

The one trick he misses is to buy components on the TP when they’re dumped at below cost. Many are, because people make piles of intermediate parts to level up instead of using discovery. Some are substantially below what they’d cost to make from raw materials, which means you can produce items with them and sell at near raw material cost for a nice profit.

One helpful predictor of future prices is figuring out which level most of the demand is at. For instance, right now it’s high in the seasoned wood/darksteel tier, compared to the next two tiers up.

Very good point Dualnay, forgot to mention the part about checking for components. That is an absolute part of the process because of the dump so many people do just to get rid of stuff. I also like to find the fine/raw materials I need and watch the market continuously for those parts and snatch anything that goes in for a low price. It happens all day everyday and you just need to be speedy and know where your break point is at for what you’re willing to pay for the base materials. Research, research research….

People will never share specific information on what to craft because:
1. They are making gold on it and want to keep their cash cow.
2. EVERYONE that reads the forum post will jump on the bandwagon flooding the market.

Rare items will sell (and not just the level 80 ones).