Guild Wars 2

Hi all,

First of all, I’m a lowbie and a newbie so I apologise if this has been highlighted before / is in the wrong forum etc.

I’ve created this topic in reference to crafting, as it’s becoming increasingly frustrating as a new player to keep up to speed with it. Let me quickly run you thought what I’ve encountered:

Main toon – Now a level 20 ele, and I’ve taken Tailoring and Artificing as my crafts. I’ve moved from the start area to the next only to find that all the gathering mats and blue drops are too high for my craft levels. To combat this, I’ve gone back to the start area to farm drops and mats, only to find the progress is still pretty slow.

I figured the problem was my laid back approach to gathering and storing items as it was my first toon.

So, I created an alt and gathered / deposited from the get go. I’ve focused mainly on discovery as this seems to be the fastest way to level 0 – 75. This hasn’t solved the problem though, as I’m approaching 15 – 16 in level and looking to move on, but my craft levels are still way off (we’re talking mid 30’s).

Am I doing something horrifically wrong here? It seems like the level to crafting ratio is seriously out of sync. The game is pushing me into higher zones naturally, but my crafting is getting ignored or unused as it’s not at the same level to move on.

Just to put this in perspective, on my main toon I pretty much bankrupt myself buying Jute scraps and stacks of blue mats on the TP, only to get maybe 1 or 2 points in the craft.

Any advice is greatly welcomed, I’m getting a bit frustrated that I can gather higher mats only to resign myself into going back a zone to re-gather for a few hours and hope to ping a point or two in the craft.

A main suggestion: forget crafting, if this is your new first char. You will need weeks, before you have enough dropped mats and money to throw for crafting. Do something else, when 80 ( after days) check again if you’re able do to something proficient. If not, wait some more week, when you will have way more mats, and way more money (assuming you didn’t waste your money for something else).

Isn’t the point to be able to craft items that help you level though?

You will never be able to keep up 2 crafts that both need Fine (blue) materials to your current level. It’s incredibly difficult to keep just 1 of those crafts up (and I even failed at that). So taking on Tailoring and Artificing, while trying to keep them up to your level was basically impossible (without buying lots of stuff from the TP or basically grinding monsters that drop those materials for hours upon hours)

If you want to try to keep 2 crafts up to your level, I would suggest that you take Jeweler or Chef for your 2nd. Since neither of them need fine materials that are monster drops. It would still be difficult tho… I had to do specific runs to just gather materials, in order to keep my jeweler up to my level, and my tailoring fell behind and I had to finish it at 80. (TP wasn’t working back then, I couldn’t buy the fine materials I needed)

It is unnecessary to wait you can craft as you lvl it just takes some planning. Take your main e.g you will need jute, leather, fine materials and wood. Wood you can gather but jute and leather you can only get from drops and salvage.
My advice to you would be to gather everything you come across and sell the mats you don’t need like ore, gems, cooking ingredients. this should enable you to make up the lack of jute and leather. To get a bit of cash, vendor blue and green drops.
If you have completed the starter zone on your main you will not be very successful in farming. My suggestion would be just to play the game normally and gather, save up and stock a bit on materials you can turn into materials you need.
You might want to look at your crafting process as well.
You want to use discovery as much as possible so make the components and insignias/inscriptions and combine in the discovery pane.
Here is a guide that might help you to have some idea of what to craft at different lvls:

http://www.gw2db.com/recipes/tailor

there is also a guide, that will let you lvl Artificer just through potions, it is fast and cheap

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/crafting/Potionmaking-How-to-level-Artificer-1-400

hope this helps

Oh yeah… I forgot about the potion leveling in Artificer :-) Thanks for pointing that one out Morrigan :-)

The first 20 levels are tough, after that it gets easier, but:

1) You do need to be religious about gathering materials, esp cloth. You don’t have to farm them, but lingering around areas and being intentional about areas where dynamic events spawn can increase your drops.
2) Since you will use very little metal, mine and sell metal. (As I understand it you can do artifice cheap, but you may want to learn a staff or two to use, so you will be able to sell wood too.
3) Save everything until you finish the tier. The armor you can craft with the mats you’re at is actually above you. (Jute tops out at 20, but wool goes to 35 which is about where you should be when you are done with that second tier zone).
3) Use the money from the metal to buy whichever is cheaper, claws/sacs or signets. Usually people will skill up on signets and they are on the TP for half the cost of the mats. If its cheaper to buy them, buy them and do a couple more discoveries. Use discovery method to make 10-12 of your cheapest items. IE 3 cheapest signets combined with 4 cheapest tailor items. The only exception is stuff you are going to wear, or stuff you can sell for a profit.
4) Do all your combines at once. You should be able to refine at least 200 cloth into bolts (the refine recipe should be light blue). That will get you 25ish skill points each tier. If you have extra you can always sell it back. You should be skilling up in 75 point blocks.

I actually kept Leatherworker/Huntsman ahead of my level and had gear sitting in my bank waiting for me to level into it using this method, so I know it does work.

What I would suggest is abandon crafting. Work on getting your main to 80.
Make an alt. Gather with the alt up to about 30. If you can start a third alt, gather with them to about 20 as well.

Now craft on one of the lower level chars. You can use you 80 to farm ingredients (vital if you want to cook especially) but mainly to make money which you can then use to fill in the gaps where your lower level chars are lacking. With your high level character you should be able to make 50 silver a day at least or so in a fairly short period of time questing around and selling off the proceeds and the 80 shouldn’t need anything (by then you’ll have all the equip that char needs until you can craft better).

Then every time you go up a tier in crafting then go back to gathering with the lower level chars until they surpass that tier’s ingredients again.

Also I would focus on just one craft at a time, let your bank fill up with ingredients for the others while you focus on one. You’ll be surprised how much accumulates there.

It’s pretty easy to max out items on the collectables tab of your bank, unfortunately 250 of many items is not anywhere near what you will need. Be ready to fill up your bank slots with overages of certain items. Specifically metals, cloths & wood.

In the case of cooking & jewel crafting, be prepared to purchase additional tabs for all the ‘crafted’ mats you have to create from those mats on the collectables tab.

Take cooking and jewel crafting.

you can get 20 levels of xp from maxing those.

That allows you to sell ALL the other mats but the ore and gems. You can make enough selling the other mats to fund any gaps you have in your main crafting.

keep all your other food to powerlevel other alts.

Don’t worry too much about being perfect and crafting perfectly in sync. First, enjoy your game and adventure if that’s what you want to do. If you’re a crafter at heart like I am and that crafting IS part of enjoying a game, I imagine you’ll pick it up quickly.

Personally, I farm all my mats. To me, it’s part of crafting. And, I’m a farmer at heart. But I’d suggest learning who and what drops what you need. There are some pretty magical creatures out there that drop variable mats say, versus a spider that only drops venom sacs. Skelk would be a great place to start, they drop salvagable hides, eggs and blood. The blood and hides you can use for tailoring and the eggs can be sold to cooks that need them for wet ingredients.

Humanoids are the other option, they drop bags which will give you all mob/blue dropped mats AND cloth/leather. Then I would salvage everything you lay your hands on at low level unless you can acutally use it. White, blues and greens. Carry many salvage kits with you and deposit directly to the bank and you can stay in a good location for quite awhile.

Before playing with the tradepost, I would definately learn about your posting fees, sales tax and how it rounds up or down. I’ve got two skills left to master and all harvesting was done by my main. I have no problem being in a lower level zone. I just deleted my 300 tailor yesterday cause I decided I didn’t like Asura. So, I’m off to Queensdale at level 80 for mats. Doesn’t phase me or embarress me at all.

In my signature are my documents for crafting. I have complete docs per zone. What drops what and where. From ore and wood to fine materials. Other stuff there too, take a look.

Just remember, have fun okay? It’s what you’re not paying for!

I ran into the same problem with my warrior; weapon and armor smithing. Oy.
I finally got caught up about level 50. Use discovery to make up the really big leaps, and if you luck out on getting a Crafting Booster from a Black Lion chest drop, save a good amount of material before you go on a huge crafting binge.
Unfortunately, the opening 1-15 stretch is too easy to breeze through, and the next 15-25 zone just doesn’t have the materials in the quantities that you need. >_>