Guild Wars 2

I have found that I generally buy most of my crafting materials from the trading post. While I salvage all my items and gather almost every resource I see, I usually don’t have enough in my collectibles to level my crafting sufficiently. This makes crafting feel more like a “clicking on interfaces” game than an exploration game. I’m thinking I want to stop buying items, and go out in the world and figure out how to obtain them myself.

Has anyone fully leveled a crafting profession without buying any materials? Is this viable? If so, how much longer will it take, taking into account that you’d have to spend time earning gold if you were buying materials?

It’s possible, but very difficult for cloth and leather, since those two material types are much more difficult to farm. I managed it, but I was playing through the game with FIVE main characters and slaughtering everything in sight. Between those five characters, I have more than enough for outfitting my characters (except for Ascended gear. I’m having to buy extra mats to supplement), but I think it would be very tedious for someone with only one character.

Sebalon.5913:

Has anyone fully leveled a crafting profession without buying any materials? Is this viable?

You’ll out-level the ideal drops-range way before you get even half a stack of them.
Meaning it would literally take you weeks to hand-collect every material you’ll need for every range for just 1 single profession. All for some items you’ll be lucky to resell for 5 silver. …yeah have fun with that.

Trying to craft to your level with ONE character is not going to work out well….

You either need someone to donate materials (another character or player) or you will need gold to buy them from the BLTP. You will not be able to collect enough materials while leveling a single character to craft equipment a the proper level. You can come close with a LOT of material farming, but that will have a tendency to level you more…..making the situation worse.

On your first character, I would suggest going with Jewelry and Cooking (as neither of those items “drop” from enemies). If you plan on more characters, keep some supply of crafting materials for future use or you can sell them with the understanding that you will need to buy materials if you want to craft in the future. That call really depends on how much you need the potential gold NOW.

I leveled all 8 of my characters simultaneously after launch. I harvested as I went. When all 8 were level 60, I started crafting and did not need to buy anything at all. I did have to delay the top tier until I had T6 materials, but that did not take long, and again, I did not buy anything.
I have crafted one Legendary, again no purchases needed, and I am almost ready to craft my second legendary with no need to buy anything.
If you play the game it gives you what you need. If you approach it like a gym membership it will bleed you dry.

depends on what level you are looking for. I farmed t3 quite easily by running the centaur events in the top right of hirathi hinterlands. And by T3 I mean cloth, leather and all 7 fine materials from the bags. This one really didnt take too long. granted it probably would have been faster to run through some dungeons and buy them, but a flamethrower and herd of centaurs is fun haha.

I did t2 before the patch, but I imagine the new updated nebo terrace events would have been just about the same.

Unfortunately, I dont think there are centaurs dropping t4, and I havent found a good spot for that tier.