Guild Wars 2

Bit of background behind the question: I’m somewhat of a completionist, and so for that reason I may max out my.. crafting levels? Later on. I’m just wondering if they are worth doing beyond that. Do they give certain bonuses; are those bonuses negligible?

I just don’t want to go out of my way gathering stuff while I level (or even afterwards) if the crafting isn’t a big deal. I saw someone earlier mention that it was useless, so I just thought I’d ask.

Thanks.

I’ve made my gold back and a ton more through time-gated recipes and various other recipes that produce a profit.

Craft for the fun of it, too.

high to max level crafting is probably the most “profitable” in terms of gold (i.e. lvl 400-500), unless you are in a hurry and choose to buy all the mats needed off the TP. But ascended armor is also REALLY nice to have, but not required except for high level fractals. Ascended weapons are a great boost over exotic though.

I crafted my whole set of ascended armor and weapons, mainly as a long term goal, and something to do. I had fun and it was worth the time spent for me. Other may not feel the same way though, and consider it a complete waste of time and money.

Alright, I’ll go ahead and level it all.

I usually end up gathering everything I can myself, and everything I can’t gather, I buy.

Ascended armor should be the least of your priorities. I just calculated what a full set of ascended gives over exotic:
+14 primary stat and +11 for two secondary stats, 54 armor (medium armor) and 6 defensive infusion slots where you can get 30 stats (vitality OR toughness OR healing power).

Compare it to that Borderlands Bloodlust buff level 1, which gives 180 points worth of stats to everyone on your side in WvW and disables the same bonus for every enemy. You might see some odd individuals flipping it every now and then but most don’t even bother with it. And what about all the characters that are running around without food and oil buffs active?

It’s a drop of water in a sea, but if you really want perfect character then go for it.

Yes, it is. Not so much early on, but it is useful for some very nice things later.

I crafted my light ascended zerk armor, staff, scepter, focus, and two daggers. After about…. 500-600 gold that i sinked into my gear my new guild (apparently very very elite) says that i made a mistake by selecting stonecleaver stats on my weapons and that why did i spent 100gold on useless gear. I’m quitting the guild tomorrow, but on topic: you can craft it but its a huge gold sink. Your call.

Nope,

Sometimes buying something that is crafted by one person is cheaper or very close to the price of buying all the ingredients to make whatever. Which in all, just saves you time from not having to worry about getting all ingredients and hassle of crafting it yourself.

There’s literally thousands of people with maxed out crafting skills, if you maxed out your crafting you’d literally not be a difference maker at all.

<— completionist. I have level 400+ of every crafting discipline even though I do not yet even have an alt above level 40 (wonders who the firsts person will be to call me an idiot) I plan to make my own ascended armor and materials from items that I gather. Why? because…..because. There are race-to-the-top players and then there are, “lets just enjoy ourselves and DO ALL THE THINGS” player. I think me and the OP(“somewhat” to quote them) fall into the latter category.

On a side note to Gaile…I also think that what it requires to level crafting far enough to make ascended gear and the fact that the ascended gear is such a small bonus does devalue high crafting levels. I would like to put in my petition for at least some but preferably lots of weapon and armor exotics (skins) that are available at max level in a given discipline even if they are made account bound. We have mystic forge RNG and crafted ones, but some more skins available to crafters would be nice.

As an example, when I first saw the model for the Ambrosia focus, I immediately wanted a mace that looked like a turkey leg (or moa or dolyak leg for the sake of the game). That could be a skin craftable by lvl 400 chef (100 meat, 250 large bone (T5), 40 poultry gravy[new recipe] and 20 bags of some spices) or something like that.

Crafting is definitely a worthwhile thing to experience. But most things that you will need (gear-wise) you will be able to purchase off of the TP for about the same cost (often cheaper) than the material cost.

There are lots of things that can’t be bought from the TP and can only be crafted (ascended gear, crafting backpacks, celestial gear, ambrite weapons and a variety of other things). I recommend crafting as you go along, so when the time comes you can craft what you need instead of having to also worry about levelling your crafting professions.

If you are worried about the financial aspect of crafting, use a guide to help you (www.gw2crafts.net). Arguably this takes some of the fun out of crafting because you remove a lot of the experimentation and adventure, but I definitely recommend using it for 400+ crafting as it is relatively tedious with or without the guide and can be very expensive if you do it without a guide.

Also, with crafting, it is possible to earn money by refining materials that are time-gated. I’ve certainly earned back what I spent levelling my crafting professions. You just have to have the funds and material to start off with (I recommend levelling alts, map completion and an unhealthy amount of gathering!)

As for the completionist aspect, it definitely fulfilled that criteria for me. I’m an avid AP hunter and love completing and mastering different areas of the game. I have maxed all crafting professions so far. I hope that they up chef and jeweller to 500 and maybe add something new in the future.

It’s worth doing, but if you are new it is low priority. I think I started leveling crafting after I’d been playing for like a year. Now I have them all maxed and yes it’s nice to have, and very nice to never have to worry whether I’ll be able to make a particular thing (timegated crafting, legendary recipes). If you really like crafting go for it. I seem to recall that I did not enjoy leveling all those crafts, and found it sucked up a ton of gold that I would have rather spent on something else.

If you find crafting boosters use them.

I have been enjoying crafting my Leather worker is now 300.. Huntsman is like 125…. I have also gained about 10 player levels just from the crafting….

IMO it’s best to level all of them to at least 400. There are several reasons that I can think of:
1. once you do it, it’s done and you don’t have to do it again. Completionism ftw!
2. each 400 craft gets you 40 AP.
3. the game is always changing and they are adding new content, so you never know when the crafting disciplines will come in handy; it’s best to have them maxed and ready for use when they will be needed (and, by the looks of things, they WILL be needed).
4. there are new backpacks that can only be acquired through crafting, and there are different ones for each craft. Even if it’s not the skins that you want, crafting them up to exotic quality is a good ideea since they are not only max stats exotic backpacks, but actually a little better (only a few points more in the primary attribute than regular exotic backpacks, but it’s something). Great for alts or for starting out, when you can’t afford ascended backpieces.

If you decide on maxing them out, here are a few tips:
1. it’s best to use guides to max your crafts, so you don’t lose too much money (stuff like gw2crafts.net).
2. try to spread your crafts over different characters, so you don’t have to pay to switch crafts if they are all on one char (I made this mistake ankitten ow regretting it, but such is life). Of course, use only characters that you will keep and not temporary ones!
3. use crafting boosters, they help quite a bit.
4. it’s best to gather up/buy the mats and craft up to 400 in one sitting. This way you can take advantage fully of #3.
5. start with the professions that are likely to help you (for example – a warrior main should start with weaponsmith, armorcrafting and huntsman).

GL!