Guild Wars 2

There’s a question pondering my mind for some time now. And I think it’s time I asked it…

Is it best to wait until I reach a high level to start crafting or should I craft along the way and make sure my level is appropriate for my character level?
I know I still need to uncover high level area’s which contain higher level ingredients/materials, but is it worth the hassle (xp/selling/equipment) to craft along while you level up?

Right now I’m almost level 25 and my crafting is about level 23.
And I feel like I should either go full out on crafting and gather/buy materials for a few days or I should wait until the money/resource flow is big enough.

What did/do you do or suggest?

(ps, I choose armor smithing as one of my crafting proffesions and so far the things I can produce are less sufficient/good then the stuff I am getting from rewards or merchants…)

Crafting is more good for experience than the gear imo I’d say just play however you like. Whenever you get somewhere near a crafting station, see what you can produce with the mats you gathered. At least that’s how I did it.

Right now its absurdly expensive to level crafts due to the supply of items running low. I would wait until it stabilizing before deciding to level up crafts.

Day.4501:

Right now its absurdly expensive to level crafts due to the supply of items running low. I would wait until it stabilizing before deciding to level up crafts.

But stabilizing doesnt mean they will be cheaper than now.

My advice is: don’t spend Karma on leveling gear and don’t go out of your way to try to keep your crafting lvl up to date, because it will not work without excessive farming. Buy green and blue equip off of the TP every 5-10 levels and then farm a bit of gold once you’re able to play in Orr. Before the bot banning waves I was able to max a craft from 0-400 with roughly 4-5g + the stuff I had collected so far. Right now, and without knowing exactly how to level a craft most efficiently, it might cost you a bit more, but it’s not so bad and will be worth it in the end, because being able to make your own gear is nice.

It cost nearly double now in some professions.

The most expensive crafts are Weaponcraft, Huntsman and Tailor.

The cheapest are Artificer, Chef, and Jeweler.

LW and Armorsmith are kind of in the middle.

The nice thing about most professions is that there are normally at least one of wood/ore that you don’t use so you can sell it and buy what you need. Huntsman and Weaponsmith both use copious amounts of both. I was doing weaponsmith tonight and it’s about 250-350 ore per tier (depending on how many ingots per bar).

In just about every case it was cheaper/easier to buy insignia/inscriptions than to make them, so sell the fine mats, sell the extra ore/wood.

Learning the pattern and the market aspect makes it easy to skill up.

Day.4501:

Right now its absurdly expensive to level crafts due to the supply of items running low. I would wait until it stabilizing before deciding to level up crafts.

TL:DR – You can make money or at least get close to break even once you can get rare recipes at crafting level 35. Beyond that point, it has been possible to craft way past your character’s adventure level without an outside source of materials.

I make money leveling up my crafting. You need a certain amount of money to get started, you need to get to crafting level 35, and you need to be willing to spend karma on the rare recipes. But from level 35 on up, you can sit in Lion’s Arch, use materials bought on the TP, and get your crafting to 400. The only thing that will force you to adventure is the Karma to buy rare recipes.

However, it is not possible to do a formula. You have to look at the market, buy things as cheaply as possible, and be patient. The market changes from hour to hour, and sometimes there just aren’t things you can make.

(At least, it was possible last week, for weapons. I have not been making anything for the L35 market more recently.)

It’s still possible to make money crafting up., here’s an example, at 8:58 am, PST:

There is an offer on the TP to buy rare Hearty Gladiator Pauldrons for 50s. The small scales to make them cost 30s if you buy them straight up, instead of making an offer at a lower price. The other materials are trivial, less than 10s total for wool, thread, and iron.

Tomorrow, it will be something else. Learn to use the market, and calculate profit margin. Buy with offers, and be patient. Use intermediate parts when people have dumped them from skilling up. You can have level 50 characters with two crafts at level 400, without help from a level 80 character or farming.