Guild Wars 2

So apart from a few hours of Lotro, GW2 is the first MMO I have gotten heavily involved in. Loving it….apart from the crafting. So please bare with me…

My problem seems to be just getting the crafting thing going….

My crafting level is around 45 (low, i know), and my character is a solid 42. The issue is that I seem to not be getting experience from crafting bronze ingots anymore, and the other items i craft give me pitiful amounts of exp.

I would spend an hour wandering around collecting materials, then use them all up and advance only a couple of pathetic levels. I havent even gotten to the stage where i can craft things with iron, silver etc… just Bronze. And everytime I put an hour aside to gather materials, the pathetic exp yield puts me off doing it again for ages.

Ive read that the crafting level is also linked to your character level? If this is the case do I have to make a new character, and start crafting RIGHT from the beginning? Or spend 20 freakin hours slowly inching my way up to catch up?

Either way im really not enjoying it.

Is there a better way im missing here?

Check out Youtube, look for ‘guild wars 2 complete beginner crafting guide’ by Enigmius, it will help you immensely!

The key bit you’re missing out on here I think is discovery. By combining items you make you’ll discover further items and it’ll give you loads of xp. Follow the linked video above to learn more.

Yeah the video was actually very informative thanks for the link! I understand the principles now and that I think was a big hurdle!

Except a few things still confuse/ anger me -_-

I go to the Discovery section and literally no combination of items creates anything….
I have an entire inventory FULL of crafting items……why the hell does no permutation work?

Edit: Only like…8 of all these items even appears in the Discovery window? Seriously, Im a smart guy……why am I having so much trouble with this?

I’m honestly about to give up on this :/

You’re probably missing insignias. Those are going to be in your production window. Depending on which crafting discipline we’re talking about, insignias will use different materials.

Let’s use armor smithing as an example. When you start, you can create a mighty chain coat (simple). This is a level 5 armor piece, and it takes chest padding, a chest panel, and a vial of weak blood. For discovery, you’ll want to look at your available insignias. So you may have a mighty insignia — that’ll be some jute, maybe some thread, and a vial of weak blood.

Then you take the base materials plus insignia, and look at the discovery tab. So for a level 10 mighty chain coat, you’d use the insignia you just made, plus a chest padding, plus a chest panel. Smoosh them together (i.e., when it says “This looks like something!” in the Discovery tab, click Create) and you learn the level 10 mighty chain coat.

As you level your skill, new insignias will become available, to a point. For level 35 armor (and some tiers above that) there are insignia patterns available from the master armor smith, that you won’t learn just by leveling. These patterns will let you make rare pieces of armor (rather than masterwork or fine) and have better stats and a different appearance — though of course there is an increased cost in materials.

But really, the short version is that you need the base pieces, plus an insignia. This can be applied to armor and weapon smithing, huntsman, leather worker, artificer and tailor. Jewel crafting is similar, but uses gems rather than insignias or inscriptions. And cooking is a whole other ball of fish.