Guild Wars 2

I was wondering this earlier, when I got my leatherworking to around 395. I noticed that the bags I can make barely go for anything more than it costs to make; more often than not I would even lose money if I sold them. So what is the best way to earn money, or at least break even, with a profession?

None of them, until people realize that it makes no sense to price a crafted item for less than it costs to craft, so in all likelihood, probably never.

cooking. go back to the kitchen and make me some pie. or sell it

I have weaponsmith and armoursmith, still working on the rest. Weaponsmith is not bad.

You will have to find the recipe on google but here is how it works.

Profession: Weaponsmith
Points needed: 375/400
Buy an Insignia(s) for recipe to craft a yellow from the NPC.
Make that yellow, I make the axe because I can use Mithril+Planks which makes gathering easier. I find a good place to farm the bones I need is the events in Straits of Devestation.
Salvage what you make with the best kit there is and get 0 to 3 Globs of Ectoplasm per weapon. Sell them for gold or use them for your own crafting saving money if you find yourself having to buy them.

Maybe not the quickest way to make gold but farming mats is easy in Straits of Devestation, more fun than grinding elsewhere. All mats are free. Can sell instantly so no waiting for a buyer there are always lots of orders at good prices. Capturing the Temple of Balthazar gets in the way a tiny bit but of course that does mean you can be sure of being there to get your shards when it is taken!

Edit: Although it might not be the quickest way to get your Karma it isn’t bad especially if you can find a Karma Boost Banner. I tend to think of the Karma as a bonus. Sales from other drops also give a bit of gold, might not be that much but pretty good I think.

Lt Surge.3275:

I was wondering this earlier, when I got my leatherworking to around 395. I noticed that the bags I can make barely go for anything more than it costs to make; more often than not I would even lose money if I sold them. So what is the best way to earn money, or at least break even, with a profession?

As Toast wrote, noone, you’re wasting your hopes. Much less about bags, now we have 20 slot bags with a few fractal tokens , no need to waste 1 copper on crafted bags. Now add karka bag from lost shores event and well..

Orichalcum jewelry is currently up to 3.5g for most of them, with the exception of opal. Considering you need 5 ectos (~1.6g,), 5 orbs (no more than 20s), and minimum 14 orichalcum ingots(dunno, ~1g?), you can make a decent profit, 70s if you buy all mats. Salvaging ectos cuts this down severely, as does ori node farming.

So yea, Jewelers right now are viable for profit.

Every discipline has its own pockets of profit. But, you have to be careful. Many people are crafting tier 1 through 5 items simply to get to 400. There are some that are profitable, but not many.

No, the profit comes when you hit 400. Even then, though, some items might be more profitable to just sell the ingredients.

Before you many ANY item for the express purpose of profit, check what it would cost if you bought all of the ingredients. Then, price out how much you can get for just selling the raw materials. Somewhere in-between those two is the break-even point.

gymdawg.6347:

Orichalcum jewelry is currently up to 3.5g for most of them, with the exception of opal. Considering you need 5 ectos (~1.6g,), 5 orbs (no more than 20s), and minimum 14 orichalcum ingots(dunno, ~1g?), you can make a decent profit, 70s if you buy all mats. Salvaging ectos cuts this down severely, as does ori node farming.

So yea, Jewelers right now are viable for profit.

You forgot the 15% tax. -.-
You won’t make that much profit off Oric Jewelery.

Farming an item doesn’t make it free

That’s all Im going to say

Cooking and Jeweling are the only crafts I’ve tried that break better than even – Cooking, because most of the things involved work from nodes or karma, and Jeweling, because people will buy the puppy out of some Ruby Bling.

Because of the experience gain from crafting, in most cases the crafting materials are going to be in higher demand and more expensive than the final product, so there is very little profit to be made. If you are willing to farm materials, cooking is probably your best bet to make gold (not profit). All of the output is consumable so demand is going to be relatively steady.

Sidieon.4198:

Farming an item doesn’t make it free

That’s all Im going to say

I will never understand the vast number of mmo players who simply refuse to get this through their heads.

Awesome.6120:

Sidieon.4198:

Farming an item doesn’t make it free

That’s all Im going to say

I will never understand the vast number of mmo players who simply refuse to get this through their heads.

It most likely just results from not have basic economics class…

time = money

None. You are competing with the Developers who make better stuff. Someday I hope they revamp crafting to make it worthwhile, but currently it is just a nifty thing in game that does not pay off monetarily. Sad but true.

Yup, crafting is in a sad place right now …

I hit lvl 80 before I had my leatherworking anywhere close to crafting exotic armour, so I bought a full set off the TP for around 6g.

I considered this an investment, whereby I could better farm the T6 mats and get the yellow drops to salvage for ectos. I thought that by leveling leatherworking to 400 and crafting exotic armour to sell on TP, I could re-coup my original 6g, plus make a tidy profit. Boy, was I wrong …

When it comes to exotic medium armour crafting, you make more selling the mats than selling the crafted pieces. I did eventually craft a full exotic set, but it was for my own use, not for selling.

I think the same goes for weaponsmith (my other 400 craft). Although this varies from weapon to weapon, and depending on the inscription used, you can break even. Greatswords with berserker or magic find always sell well ..

Crafting works, and it is possible to make ok gold at it (good gold if you are a low-level). Here’s an explanation of how the crafting economy works, and how to make money:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/crafting/How-can-crafting-be-made-profitable/672289

TL;DR – It’s a competitive market economy. There are ways to lower your costs, and when you do you can make a profit. Because it is a competitive market economy, the profitable areas will change, and rapidly. You have to adapt, work, and think.

That said, I recently started up Huntsman on a Ranger character, because I knew I’d want Huntsman 400 for the legendary. So far, I’m up to steel tier, and I made money on each tier. Not a whole lot on the green wood/bronze tier (16s), but I limited myself to a 50s grubstake, and was careful to not gather any materials.

That’s right, done entirely by buying on the TP, making stuff, and selling on the TP.

The only thing crafting is good for in this game is leveling your alts. 10 levels per craft works out nicely.

I think that making lvl 400 exotics can be profitable. I checked the TP yesterday because I wanted to outfit my Ranger in Knight’s gear. To buy 4 pieces, it was 14 gold. To make the 4 pieces, it was about 4 gold. I did have 10 of the 20 Armored Scales and 10 of the 20 Ectos, but that would take it up to maybe 6 gold. Still a profit.

@Heylo
What could you have sold those 10 Armourd Scales and the 10 ectos you had for?? And then the gossamer, the hardened leather, and the 100 odd spools you needed?? Remember, the time you spent and salvage kits needed to get gossamer and leather scraps …

I crafted my exotic medium (3 Knight and 3 Valkyrie) armour around 2-3 weeks ago. At the time I had enough ecto, but needed 5 Armoured Scales, 2 Vicious Fangs and some gossamer scraps.

Before doing so, I checked the armour prices on the TP. What I looked at were not the prices from sellers, but the ‘bid’ prices from buyers. This is the price players are willing to pay, and there was a big difference between the two. I remember doing some sums, and this was when I realised crafting exotic medium armour was not going to make me rich ….

Perhaps the prices have shifted since then, but at the time I felt I was loosing value by crafting the armour. Went ahead with doing it anyway …

Any but you have to follow your markets. So you may as well trade too.

It is Goldcrafting.

Toast.6459:

None of them, until people realize that it makes no sense to price a crafted item for less than it costs to craft, so in all likelihood, probably never.

It makes perfect sense that the mats cost more than the final item. It’s been like this in every game that uses this level up crafting style. A finished product is just that, the mats on the other hand are just as good as the finished product + a skill up. You get more value out of the mats than out of the item, therefore they are worth more.

There is absolutely no point in crafting if you plan to use it as a direct way to gain gold.
However… depending on your play style and addiction to multiple alts, it can be worthwhile. You need to think of it as an investment rather than a way to turn an instant profit.
Bear with me…
It takes anywhere between three and six gold to level a craft, or less if you farm all of the mats yourself. The average crafted exotic weapon or armour piece on the TP typically costs anywhere between three and six gold. I have found that I can usually make an exotic item for about half of what it would take to buy it.
If you use multiple weapons and you have numerous alts…crafting becomes very much worth it.
Also, and this is significant these days, if you can craft rare weapons or armour….. you can salvage the results.

So far I have mastered all of the crafts except one. I have no regrets.

as i see it crafting has no purpose but to level…with few exceptions. now that you can PvE farm almost all trinkets, making them seems a little pointless.

xExitium.5198:

gymdawg.6347:

Orichalcum jewelry is currently up to 3.5g for most of them, with the exception of opal. Considering you need 5 ectos (~1.6g,), 5 orbs (no more than 20s), and minimum 14 orichalcum ingots(dunno, ~1g?), you can make a decent profit, 70s if you buy all mats. Salvaging ectos cuts this down severely, as does ori node farming.

So yea, Jewelers right now are viable for profit.

You forgot the 15% tax. -.-
You won’t make that much profit off Oric Jewelery.

No, but after all the deductions I get a 8 – 15% return on my investment… which pretty much adds to a free gold a day if you sell properly.

It’s nothing huge, but I do earn 1~2 gold per day selling stuff I craft. I get about 20~50% more coin than what I would’ve gotten if I sold the mats + avoiding the mandatory crafting costs like spools of thread. It’s been a nice source of alternate income aside from earnings from regular play/farming orr. Just for the sake of content I maxed all crafting disciplines, and it’s given me a wider option of items to sell too.

Have a look at the stuff you can craft and check their prices on the tp. You’ll be surprised how much some items sell for, although they do fluctuate wildly so you have to check the tp all the time before you craft.

Here’s an idea, what if Anet added useful craft-able gear, too bad they can’t since maxed stats are maxed and gear does not have special properties other than stats.

Vicariuz.1605:

Here’s an idea, what if Anet added useful craft-able gear, too bad they can’t since maxed stats are maxed and gear does not have special properties other than stats.

would be enough for crafters to be able to make some cool looking stuff instead of garbage looking, stat carrying stuff to transmute asap. OFC there are some pieces of armors and weapons that may look decent to some but 95% of craftable stuff looks terribly IMO. I still remember the disappontment when I crafted my first exotic helmet for my thief… then I crafted some exotic daggers/swords/bows… pearl ones…

Back to topic. As already mentioned I find crafting “proffitable” in few ways.
First I can use junk mats to make some greens and throw them into MF in hope to get some rares to salvage for ectos or gamble with getting a precursor. Good stuff if you trying to make legendary. Recepies for lvl 80 rares cost only few karma anyway and use mats you do not need for legendary.
Second, I can make stuff for my alts or myself if I need it (Magic Find gear or food) so that way I don’t waste gold I may need to buy mats required to make legendary weapon, right?
Third, TP still provides some opportunities sometimes so you can craft some gear or even crafting components that will sell quite nice. Especially if you use mats you got “by the way”.
Last but not least, you are able to transmute and refine raw mats so you can hold more in your collectible bank and save room in bags/regular bank for more important stuff. And if you are going for the legendary you will have to lvl up 1-2 crafts at least to be able to make some gifts anyway.

Talked to a pal few days ago and he said he spent about 15g when he hit 80 just to buy missing exotics. I got my lvl 80 exotics before I even hit 80 an it cost me only the time to farm nodes/salvage stuff (with basic kits) as I levelled up.

To sum up, crafting may not make you rich but will allow you to save a lot of coins.

bri.2359:

@Heylo
What could you have sold those 10 Armourd Scales and the 10 ectos you had for?? And then the gossamer, the hardened leather, and the 100 odd spools you needed?? Remember, the time you spent and salvage kits needed to get gossamer and leather scraps …

I don’t think that selling those things would have made the difference from 6 to 14 gold.
Honestly, I don’t craft to make money. I craft to level and even that is done sparingly as I work towards a legendary, which means every material and gold count.

Crafting needs to be for more than experience. i recommend you steal Everquest 1/2’s crafting system, Anet.