Guild Wars 2

This isn’t meant to be a criticism of any system, I’m just looking for information. I really enjoy crafting and this game’s recipe based system, so I leveled up to 400 just for fun and have no regrets. But I do have some questions!

It looks like anything you could possibly want is already on the market for much less then it would cost to make it yourself. So if you are looking for equipment it’s better to just buy stuff then to craft it.

At the same time, it looks like the raw components sell for more then crafted items. For example, if I have 3 small claws and some ore, I would make more selling them separately then I would combining them into an item and selling that item.

Are there hidden recipes, BOP items, or some other system I’m not aware of that adds benefits to crafting? Or it a losing game you take part in for the fun and xp?

You will hear arguments for and against crafting surrounding precicely the issues you raise. I will share my opinion and wish you the best in crafting:

1) You’re best off working with Rare / Exotics if you want to see some of the real potential in crafting. That being said, the market value of some items can have surprising return on investment for partial goods (insignia, sword blades, etc.) If you want to produce something that is worth more than it cost to make, you have to keep an eye on the TP, the market shifts frequently.

2) As a follow up to #1, look at things like Corrupted Weapons and Destroyer Weapons, these are crafted exotics that can be built by lvl 400 crafters (and are pretty cool.)

3) There are also weapons that require you to make an account bound item (gift) before you can forge the weapon. Azureflame and Wintersbite are examples of these. There are others.

There is a ton of un-tapped depth in crafting, GL in your Crafting and if you have specific questions, by all means ask!

Lexie.5894:

This isn’t meant to be a criticism of any system, I’m just looking for information. I really enjoy crafting and this game’s recipe based system, so I leveled up to 400 just for fun and have no regrets. But I do have some questions!

It looks like anything you could possibly want is already on the market for much less then it would cost to make it yourself. So if you are looking for equipment it’s better to just buy stuff then to craft it.

At the same time, it looks like the raw components sell for more then crafted items. For example, if I have 3 small claws and some ore, I would make more selling them separately then I would combining them into an item and selling that item.

Are there hidden recipes, BOP items, or some other system I’m not aware of that adds benefits to crafting? Or it a losing game you take part in for the fun and xp?

Not every single item is profitable to craft and you are right that there are a large number of items that it’s cheaper to just buy it straight from the TP (it really confuses why someone would go to the trouble of crafting a lvl400 epic sword and then put in the TP for less than the cost of the materials, but that just makes you realise that there is a huge amount of people with skrit for brains).
Saying that there is a huge amount of weapons and armor that are very profitable to craft.
Blues and Greens usually aren’t profitable, but there’s profit to be made on rares and epics all through out the levels.

- Have you bought your karma recipes for insignias / inscriptions?
- Have you bought any of the karma recipes that are sold by the heart NPCs on the lower level areas?
- Have you checked to see what are the most appealing skins for each particular weapon?
- Do not take the information on GW2Spidy at face value. Just because it says that something isn’t profitable to craft there, doesn’t mean that it is so. Several times when adding the figures manually I find that their information is way off.
- Just because the great sword of fire is selling at a profit at the moment doesn’t mean that it will still be profitable 6 hours from now, identify the opportunity, react and sell it as quick as you can.

Crafting is both useful and profitable, but you take from it exactly what you put in. The ones that are willing to spend some time and study what your potential customer wants are the ones that are gonna turn a profit.

One of the other things you have to understand in crafting for profit is market velocity. As an example (one that’s well known I would think) Carrion Krait Slayers (lvl 80 rare greatswords) have tremendous velocity because people buy them in droves to huck in the mystic forge. I can clear a sell order of 30-40 of these in the time it takes to do a single dungeon path.

Some other items that have a higher profit margin have an exceptionally low velocity. I’ve listed items that took all day to sell, but sold for a profit in the 10-15g range.

Don’t create a glut larger than the market will bear…. if I see a sell order of 200+ of an item, I usually price just below that massive supply with a much smaller listing and watch my items sell quickly.

You have to realize that the price of an item will fluxuate several times durring the day which can significantly change the profitability of an item. If something looks like it’s selling at a loss now you have to remember that the person who crafted that item may have sourced their mats at a lower price point.

I’ve seriously watched the price of a t6 mat that I was using move from 4s75c to 6s25c in the span it took me to finish a fractal and have dinner. Since I was working in a bulk of 250 of that t6 mat, the swing was over 3g per stack…. and that kind of swing happened in a few hours.

Use buy orders, it may take longer for them to fill, but you can place yourself in the market better.

Thanks for the great replies!

It seems we are talking about two things; brokering and crafting. Brokering is playing the BLAH to buy items low and sell them high. A very profitable and mildly enjoyable thing. One of the things you can do this with is crafted items.

What I’m trying to talk about is crafting itself, and why craft? Any argument you can make about market velocity of a crafted sword applies equally to the components, and that looks like it’s almost always the best way to go.

Oosih I see your point about the karma items, there seems to be a little bit of profit in them in the lower levels. It seems like daggers and great swords are crazy out of line with other items; a 50 rare dagger was selling for 25 silver where a sword of the same type needing the same resources (slightly more in fact) was selling for 2 silver 1 copper. At 80 it seems to fall off though, with almost all karma items selling for less then the globes needed to make them.

Again, I’m not trying to say crafting sucks or there is no point in doing it … hell, I got 15 levels off it and that makes it worth it right there. I’m just figured I was missing something, seeing the IG economy seems pretty broken.

I dunno if it’s broken. Economies are going to fluctuate. And supply and demand is going to be a big factor in fluctuations. As your example of daggers selling more than swords. I could see how daggers would be in higher demands since two of the most popular PvP professions(thieves and D/D Eles) use them. On the flips side I don’t see 1h swords used nearly as much as daggers. I admit I got no real numbers to back that up. Just observation.

I guess what it comes back to is the core reasons to craft haven’t changed much:

#1: Crafting your own gear. Crafting is strong for the player type who chooses not to use the trading post to source their equipment. I play with several guild mates that feel that they haven’t earned an item if they buy the mats or the finished item. For them, crafting is about gathering the raw materials and coming out with a result they feel is rewarding because it came from direct effort.

#2. Crafting for Profit. Fundamentally, this becomes a tool in navigating the peaks and valleys of the market, finding a need, and crafting to fill it. It takes on an additional layer of complexity and results in the potential for higher yield than buying mats low and selling mats high (flipping,) but is fundamentally an ecenomic activity.

#3: Crafting as a means to level. In the 0-80 equipment range, a vast amount of the value of raw mats vs finished goods is a direct result of people crafting to level a character, or simply to max a craft for the achievement points of doing so. In much of this specific market there is more opportunity from raw mats than finished goods, because the goal isn’t the finished good, but the XP gained along the way.

Ultimately, that’s it. You’re either crafting for your own needs, or crafting for financial gain.

I had a very rewarding moment last night when a friend realized (after getting pounded a bit over hard in a lvl 10 fractal) that she still had lvl 40 rings, and lvl 35 trinkets. We talked about build and what she needed, also how we could best replace gear via Laurels, Pristine Relics, and guild missions, and settled on a path to get the best Return on Investment. In the end, she handed me the mats to craft lvl 80 masterwork rings because those would be replaced quickly via time in fractals, but we crafted exotics for the earrings because the time investment to replace them with ascended gear would be significantly longer. The amulet she got via laurels.

All of it came from mats she had sitting in storeage, just waiting to be used. The only thing she didn’t have was a lvl 400 jewel crafter. I was happy to help a friend who immediatly noticed the difference in performance of her character.

In the end, if you enjoy the types of things you can do with crafting, it’s a worth while pursuit. If you don’t enjoy it, then play other parts of the game and don’t sweat the crafting.

The great part of GW2 is that you don’t need to craft to be good at things or make money, but if you like to craft then it can help you and you can make money doing it.

BrimstoneAshe.5043:

I dunno if it’s broken. Economies are going to fluctuate. And supply and demand is going to be a big factor in fluctuations. As your example of daggers selling more than swords. I could see how daggers would be in higher demands since two of the most popular PvP professions(thieves and D/D Eles) use them. On the flips side I don’t see 1h swords used nearly as much as daggers. I admit I got no real numbers to back that up. Just observation.

My example in’t daggers selling more then swords as why the market is broken. That the iPad selling for more then the nexus 7 even though they cost about the same to make. Market factors make it so apple can sell the iPad for more. That’s great, and how free market works.

My example is that apple selling a hunk of silica, some aluminum, and LCD screen for SIGNIFICANTLY more then it could sell an assumed iPad for. That market is broken, as apple should not make iPads. That’s what happens in guild wars and why I use the word “broken”.

Lexie.5894:

BrimstoneAshe.5043:

I dunno if it’s broken. Economies are going to fluctuate. And supply and demand is going to be a big factor in fluctuations. As your example of daggers selling more than swords. I could see how daggers would be in higher demands since two of the most popular PvP professions(thieves and D/D Eles) use them. On the flips side I don’t see 1h swords used nearly as much as daggers. I admit I got no real numbers to back that up. Just observation.

My example in’t daggers selling more then swords as why the market is broken. That the iPad selling for more then the nexus 7 even though they cost about the same to make. Market factors make it so apple can sell the iPad for more. That’s great, and how free market works.

My example is that apple selling a hunk of silica, some aluminum, and LCD screen for SIGNIFICANTLY more then it could sell an assumed iPad for. That market is broken, as apple should not make iPads. That’s what happens in guild wars and why I use the word “broken”.

Here’s the thing about GW2 and why I wouldn’t use the word broken. Raw materials have a value that exceeds the goods they can produce because the act of producing goods results in XP. Also, this is not universally true of all raw materials and finished goods.

This phenomenon is most clearly demonstrated in crafted blues, which are low value items that cost more to make than they do to buy, but are made for the purpose of leveling crafting. This is substantially less true of items of higher rarity. I don’t see anything broken with that. There’s no benefit to crafting common items save for the xp gained from doing so, and leveling the crafting discipline itself. That’s what you’re paying for at those levels of materials.

You’re also targeting a narrow market with sub-lvl 80 equipment. For most characters, a majority of game play occurs at max level, so the gear they use while leveling is of less value than the gear they will use for extended periods of time. Because of this, and the above factor, mid level blues will always occupy a Supply Exceeds Demand position in the market.

Your iPad example is actually perfect. The iPad is a high end finished product that is worth more than the cost of goods to produce. Compare that to a loss leading product (let’s say a low end smart phone) who’s purpose is not to be inherently profitable but has a purpose of generating revenue based on subscriber fees (2 year service contract.) The cost of the low end phone exceeds it’s sale price, but much like the cost to produce a low level blue exceeds it’s sale price, the goal isn’t to profit based on the sale of the item.

Here’s a way to look at it that may make the current prices make more sense.

Each item that you craft was a cost, that is, the cost of raw materials.

Each item that you craft has a value.

The problem is that you’re only looking at the value of the item in terms of its sale price. Really the value of the item is the sale price + the xp that you gain from crafting. (Yes, I know that you don’t gain XP once you max crafting in a discipline, but in the aggregate many people craft for XP and you need to look at it in the aggregate.)

For example, if the raw materials were free and you couldn’t sell the finished product people would skill craft (in order to get the experience). So many people are buying XP and recouping what they can from the market.

Another crafting benefit is the ability to obtain goods cheaper than any other way. For example, look at an Amethyst Silver Band. To buy it off the TP costs 1s67c, but it only costs 1s 57 copper to make from it’s component parts. You can’t make one and sell it for a profit (because of the TP fees), but you can obtain one with want for 10c less.

Finally, some items can sell for a profit. But you have to be careful. Berserker and Knight gear will generally sell. For example, you can buy the items for a Knight’s Pearl Carver, right now, make it and post it for sale and make 30 silver.