Guild Wars 2

Unless you seek to obtain legendary weapons in the long run (in which case be ready for a LONG investment of time). At least right now, that seems to be a sad fact. I am a 400 Armorsmith/390 Jewelmaker and I regret that.

It really is flabbergasting that people are investing crazy amounts of gold into this. It is not worth it. Most people are doing it for the experience, I guess, but experience is already easy to get through other means.

So what if you can craft an exotic 80 armor? You can buy one at cost price without having any crafting skill as well if you are a little patient (and that really is a patience of minutes, not days. Otherwise you can still pay some low extra silver, it doesn’t change much). Get the mats, sell them, buy the armor, it’s the same. In truth, most people who invest into crafting really will have no chance to get exotic armor right away when they get to level 80. While people who don’t craft will have tons of extra gold that they earned from selling mats to buy a full set at that point.

And I speak that from personal experience. Get to anyone who sells their mats, an you’ll se they’re in a pretty stable situation at any level, while people who craft are generally struggling to buy anything that they should be able to at the point they are in the game.

And then there is the experience factor. Some people (apparently more than what we can imagine) think it is worth throwing 4g into the market to get two levels. Hence the insane cost of materials. That’s their option really, but when the act of crafting itself is more rewarding for them than the crafted goods they create, we get the whole anomalous mess the trading post is going through right now.

That, of course, may not be the case for all crafting disciplines. Cooking is incredibly different. But I can’t really see it getting much different. People may tell me all they want that it is very worth it, I get that a lot here, but I don’t see it in the game. Perhaps it is some sort of cognitive denial for having invested so much into something not worth it, or perhaps they truly know some secret recipe to get extra money through crafting. Go figure.

I started my crafting session with ~5g in pocket and 256 Weaponsmith last night. I went to bed with 9.18g and 400 Weaponsmith + several discovered exotic plans.

It’s possible.

Youd.1375:

I started my crafting session with ~5g in pocket and 256 Weaponsmith last night. I went to bed with 9.18g and 400 Weaponsmith + several discovered exotic plans.

It’s possible.

Maybe it’s weaponcrafting then. I don’t see anything like that for armorsmithing.

Well, I think the overall problem is that you level way to fast in this game. I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if you got experience for typing /afk or /dance.

So, all the people who really enjoy crafting and wish to make things mostly for themselves are kind of screwed since you level so fast as a character, you cannot keep up with crafting items for the rapidly passing character levels. The mats do NOT come fast, it takes a lot of farming to be able to get the proper materials to craft even one item. But, since you level is adjusted per zone, you still continue to get experience and so continue leveling creating the problem of even more behind in crafting level vs player level.

So, crafters are thus faced with a few choices in getting mats BUT NOT LEVELING:

1. Create a low level alt to get mats in a lower level area.
2. Buy mats

Problems with these choices:

1. The alt you make will eventually level past where you want, so you have to make another alt.

2. Mats are not worth buying. They are being sold for more than the items they are used to make.

Example: I have a 45 Thief that is a Weaponsmith. Unfortunately, he is at 136 level which means he can only make level 35 items. So I have to make a LOT of lower level items to get my Weaponsmith level to a point I can actually use the item, but I dont have nearly the amount of materials to make even a fraction of those items. It isnt for lack of trying, but again – if I farm, I still get experience and thus level more and further distance myself from making items I can actually use. Enter the Black Lion Trading, however even 1 material, lets say a Small Venom Sac, costs 1 silver 54 copper. Right now I need 8, yet if I look up to see the price of a level 45 weapon, I see multiple choices as ranging from 40 coppper to 1 silver 80 copper. So pay a ton for mats to make 1 item that is not useable -or- pay a fraction for an item that IS useable.

So, the original poster is right in this – “Get the mats, sell them, buy the armor,” but not this – " it’s the same. " The only part that is the same is getting the item, not the frustration of what is currently crafting.

Hey, at least I can make my own bags I guess :P

Leveled up leatherworking to 400 on the way up to 80, but never really made anything worth using during that time. Ended up actually wearing maybe 3 pieces of what I’d crafted total, and they weren’t very good items. It seems nearly impossible to keep your crafting level up with your character level unless you buy lots of materials off the trading post (which didn’t work at the time), but at that point, why not just buy the items themselves? Or just don’t bother at all and wear what drops because it isn’t really worth it to blow tons of cash on something that will be outdated in a few hours.

I did end up making myself a couple sets of level 80 yellow gear but it didn’t seem much cheaper, if any cheaper than just buying that stuff off the TP. Hell, I could have gotten 78 oranges for about that price, which not only have very slightly better stats but also don’t require the high end transmutation stones.

But hey, at least I can make stuff for my engineer alt, right? I’ll just put together this set of level 20 greens so I’ll have something cool waiting for me. Wait, what’s that? My level 21 engineer just picked up a level 21 blue with significantly better stats than the stuff I just made? Well then.

I am going to stop crafting I feel the same way, its a time and gold suckk with very little reward, at my levels I get >= gear from Blues I pick up in instance or Karma, whats the point?

I wish a game would allo wyou to craft things you can make that give you better than what you can get from drops, even if the items are solebound and cant be sold it make it worth teh time / effort.

I do it because it’s fun. I treat Crafting as a sort of mini-game: Buying/finding mats I need, selling those I don’t; discovering new items to build, seeing what I can come up with; actually creating something you can use that is better than what you’ve got. It’s just something extra to do. If you treat it purely as a Min/Max exercise then you will be disappointed and should probably just buy your items the way you suggest.

Yea crafting for me will just be for kicks, no longer for what I need. Maybe to make an alt something. But I won’t buy mats and when I have a character that hits 80 and no longer needs exp, he can be my farmer for an alt to possibly advance. Trying to keep my crafting viable to my characters level is an exercise in futility

Moandero.7320:

So, all the people who really enjoy crafting and wish to make things mostly for themselves are kind of screwed since you level so fast as a character, you cannot keep up with crafting items for the rapidly passing character levels. The mats do NOT come fast, it takes a lot of farming to be able to get the proper materials to craft even one item. But, since you level is adjusted per zone, you still continue to get experience and so continue leveling creating the problem of even more behind in crafting level vs player level.

This… I leveled naturally to 80 with an Elementalist and now I am leveling up a thief. I salvage everything I get my hands on, but I have kept my focus on hearts. Between those two characters I still lack the Jute scraps that I need. I think tonight I will go back to the starting zone with the Elementalist and just blow up caves full of humanoids for several hours. Else I am never going to get into full swing with crafting.

I’ve always crafted in games since I started playing these games in the 90’s. I don’t find this crafting system very entertaining or rewarding. The discovery system is interesting but I feel as though I’m forced to ‘farm’ for hours to get anything done.

My highest character is 38 and I have alts that range from 10+. I keep everything and salvage most drops. Even with all this activity if I go to ‘craft’ I can only do a few items. Prices are ridicules and I’m not going to buy gems to turn into gold just to do some crafting.

What I’d like to see is all equipment break at some point. Let people ‘repair’ but put a durability on it. Then crafters have continual business.

JAX.8347:

I am going to stop crafting I feel the same way, its a time and gold suckk with very little reward

I agree with this…. crafting seems useless in this game…

400 armor 400 Weapon, haven’t spent even 1 silver on it. But I have made 20 – 30 gold

Im happy its not in any way shape of form mandatory.

Some people like crafting, im glad the option is there for them even if others dont like it. People should not expect every facet of the game to be something they enjoy.

Jeweling never disappointed me, tailoring has been sort of an annoyance, however I do like the appearance of some of the sets so I will most likely end up using it anyway.

I saved or used all crafting materials I got (got 400 artificing last night for about 60 silver)

When I hit level 80 I had a full set of magic find gear (full travelers set, 5 runes of pirate, one rune of traveler, 5 opal mithril accessories, and a magic find sigil) and plenty of gold to spare.

I think it may have been mentioned before but I think there is a problem in how much stuff needs to be crafted to level up the crafts.

The way I see it, many people are producing lots and lots of crafting products because it requires lots and lots of crafting products to be made to level up the crafts. This makes the supply of products very high, even though most people actually aren’t making these items to sell. This makes prices on the trading post for crafting products no better than selling them to a vendor.

In addition, all those products need lots and lots of crafting materials (especially the fine materials), meaning the demand on the crafting materials is very high, which coupled with low drop rates makes the price very high.

The result is a situation where it is nearly always better to farm the crafting materials and sell them than it ever is to actually sell a product. This makes for a very sad crafting experience.

So, what if you didn’t need anywhere near the number of products crafted to level the craft up? Well, you would have far less products on the trading post – possibly enough to make the supply & demand reach a reasonable equilibrium.

The crafting materials demand will be much lower because less products are needed to be made. This means the price on them will fall to more reasonable levels.

The result should allow products to be made that are at least cost effective – hopefully even profitable. This would make for a much better crafting experience.

I bet half of players don’t even know (or forgot) they can craft gold (rare) armor/weapons/jewelry @ craft levels 125 and 250. For levels 35 and 50. Using noob resources.

“I bet half of players don’t even know (or forgot) they can craft gold (rare) armor/weapons/jewelry @ craft levels 125 and 250. For levels 35 and 50. Using noob resources.”

Which are already flooded on the Trading Post for 1 copper above the merchant price.

Only reason level 80 golds sell well is because people are salvaging them for ectos.

The problem may be that people are powerleveling crafting and then complaining that it’s worthless.

I personally have found a way to make decent money with crafting while leveling it at the same time. A little bit of thought and research will reveal this method.

Well, for people here saying that it’s cheaper to just buy the gear, I did the math.
I used the Cleric Heavy gear set. For that set of gear you will need:
(Keep in mind all the prices here are the prices of the TP of 18/09 and the materials needed are taken from gw2db.com)

x74 Gossamer Scrap = 3g50s
x30 Glob of Ectoplasm = 7g21s
x13 Spool of Gossamer Thread(Stack) = 83s
x30 Elaborate Totem = 3g
x32 Orichalcum Ore = 87s

Total = 15g41s

Now let’s take at how much you would have to pay for the gear:
Cleric’s Draconic Pauldron = 3g17s
Cleric’s Draconic Boots = 3g20s
Cleric’s Draconic Legs = 3g36s
Cleric’s Draconic Coat = 3g40s
Cleric’s Draconic Gauntlet = 3g19s
Cleric’s Draconic Helm = 3g5s

Total = 19g82s

So, assuming that you are lv 80, 400 Armorsmith and you have 20g to buy/make your gear, if you look at the math, you could save 4g and 41s by making the gear, but if you are lv 80 and 400 armorsmith at this point, you probably didn’t leveled your profession by farming mats, in other words, bye bye profit.

So what’s the point here? The point is, it’s only worth to make your gear if you can level your profession to 400 by spending only 4g and 41s(or something like that). Although, if you can level it by farming, it’s better to just buy the mats and make your gear.
(Keep in mind I’m using the cleric gear as an example, prices for other types of gear may vary).

Well, the conclusion might be useless, but I’ll leave it here if anyone wanna know how much does it cost to make/buy your own Cleric gear.

Aimeryan.1247:

I think it may have been mentioned before but I think there is a problem in how much stuff needs to be crafted to level up the crafts.

The way I see it, many people are producing lots and lots of crafting products because it requires lots and lots of crafting products to be made to level up the crafts. This makes the supply of products very high, even though most people actually aren’t making these items to sell. This makes prices on the trading post for crafting products no better than selling them to a vendor.

In addition, all those products need lots and lots of crafting materials (especially the fine materials), meaning the demand on the crafting materials is very high, which coupled with low drop rates makes the price very high.

The result is a situation where it is nearly always better to farm the crafting materials and sell them than it ever is to actually sell a product. This makes for a very sad crafting experience.

So, what if you didn’t need anywhere near the number of products crafted to level the craft up? Well, you would have far less products on the trading post – possibly enough to make the supply & demand reach a reasonable equilibrium.

The crafting materials demand will be much lower because less products are needed to be made. This means the price on them will fall to more reasonable levels.

The result should allow products to be made that are at least cost effective – hopefully even profitable. This would make for a much better crafting experience.

this

The fine materials are what kill me, personally.

I’ve got a bunch of alts that I’m leveling more or less concurrently, and all of them are in duos. We pool mats, I’m doing the gear crafting and my partner is doing the cooking. This would work out well… since we’re both fairly diligent gatherers, I’ve got tons and tons of raw materials to spare; the only problem I ran into so far was gold for jeweling.

But even with two people pooling mats across 5 alts all in the same level range, I don’t get anywhere near enough fine crafting materials. They cost way too much on the Post, and it’s pretty easy to see why crafting isn’t profitable.

Making a green piece of armor or weapon takes 8 fine materials of a given type. I don’t know about you, but I am sure as heck not getting 8 fine crafted mats for every green item drop I stumble across while exploring, and that’s not even bothering to account for the green armor that can be purchased reliably with karma. Nor is it mentioning that the armor I’m crafting takes those 8 mats, plus other raw materials, and doesn’t even come with a rune or sigil, which most green karma/loot drops do, which skews the balance even further away from crafting.

Just make a blue inscription take 1 fine crafting mat, a green take 3, and a rare take 6. Then maybe prices for both fine mats AND basic mats will come under control.

so true,

i was so excited at first, made my charakter leather and juwelier expert,
but im lvl 50 already and still need like never ending amount of copper ore to get super crappy rings i dont even need anymore and get easely better ones as loot,
bank space is limited, so there is no way to put EVERYTHING i make inside for alts

its hilarious
that devs couldnt think about such a simple strategy to make crafting worth while and level – matching

i quit with crafting after getting with my juwelier skill only to lvl 34
and i started to farm EVERYTHING i found on my way since the release of the game!
such a long time effort and no use at all >_> you screwed up big here

and your idi-otic update, which allows to use those maths as mystic-forge thingy… everyone naturally sell those couse noone even trys those proffessions, and not couse there is more of those maths as needed.

tz how s… can you devs be?

I’m planning on having my first set of exotics be crafted by my own Tailoring (hit 400 a couple days ago), and currently working on getting all of the necessary mats.

For me, it’s rewarding. I know that’s completely subjective and it probably doesn’t mean anything to some people, but as an RP’er and something of an immersion player, I end up treasuring my gear that much more than if I just bought them off the TP. It’s also why I like that Legendary weapons take so long to craft and can’t be traded. If you see someone walking around with a legendary weapon on their back, that means they earned every pixel of it.

I do think that some things in GW2 tend to be a little bit on the excessive side with grinding, but that’s how it was in GW1. I know that it’s not much of a justification, but to me that means that the grind probably won’t change much. The good thing about it is that all of the things that require immense levels of grinding are merely cosmetic, meaning that people who don’t feel like going through all of the trouble of getting those items themselves don’t have to worry about it. Don’t like that that guy over there has a cooler looking greatsword than you? Well, that guy over there put in the time for it. He earned it, and so can you if you want it that badly.

Can’t speak for anyone else but I just enjoy crafting.

Alot of people look at it wrong
If you craft armor it can cost you absolutely nothing
I don’t know what crazy amounts of gold you are putting into crafting. I currently have artifice, JC, tailor, and cook at 400 and I would say I spent less then a gold total
I made 2 sets of armor for myself. I also made numerous this to break down for ectos

The only time I spent any money was bying the claws, blood and stuff if I was at the end of a tier and didnt feel like going out to get more

Its not cheaper to buy anything.
I paid 0 to make my armor set outside of buying thread
I paid 0 to make my second armor set
I will be paying 0 to make my jewelry
and it cost me 0 to make my staff

mangarrage.1062:

Alot of people look at it wrong
If you craft armor it can cost you absolutely nothing
I don’t know what crazy amounts of gold you are putting into crafting. I currently have artifice, JC, tailor, and cook at 400 and I would say I spent less then a gold total
I made 2 sets of armor for myself. I also made numerous this to break down for ectos

The only time I spent any money was bying the claws, blood and stuff if I was at the end of a tier and didnt feel like going out to get more

Its not cheaper to buy anything.
I paid 0 to make my armor set outside of buying thread
I paid 0 to make my second armor set
I will be paying 0 to make my jewelry
and it cost me 0 to make my staff

True you do not need to spend gold to level your crafting profession. Now let me ask you this. How much time to did you spend grinding up all the mats to do that?

Your missing the point of the thread. The point is, the crafting is out of balance. The amount of mats needed to level crafting atm are to high in comparison to the rate of character level and acquisition of said materials. Which then force players to either A] not craft B] grind for hours or C] spend gold.

This is in direct contrast of what A.Net themselves said they were trying to achieve with their crafting system. Yes crafting at 80 for Exotics/Legendaries should be a grind but leveling the crafting should not. It should be a smooth progression that follows suit with your character leveling.

Solution is easy, reduce the amount of materials needed and reduce XP given (to align with easy skill leveling). This would also reduce the cost of materials on the market for those who still insist on buying. However do not reduce the mats needed for Lvl 80 recipes. Simple bam fixed.