So just yesterday I switched from my 80 guardian to my 50 elementalist at the last boss in AC for some experience, then some guy whispered me why I didn’t level by crafting. I told them because it’s expensive then he went ahead and told me it’s only about 20 gold from 1-80, and that he level 4 toons from 1-80 with only 60g.
I thought the cost was closer to 40g per character, anyway prices have changed or what’s up? Cause if it’s 20g I’m pretty sure I’d rather do that and just farm cof for a day to achieve that amount.
Probably a lot more now due to material inflation. 40-60 gold would be more correct.
You can check out the resource below to help answer your question.
According to this calculator it’ll be about 70g as of the time of this post to level all 8 disciplines, if you have to buy everything.
Just like I thought he was full of kitten.
I’ve found it costs about 15g per profession now unless you use a guide that gives you maximum efficiency which might save you some money.
Keep in mind; you can mitigate costs by purchasing some of the intermediary materials. And those costs also assume you have gathered absolutely nothing.
I used crafting on my mesmer to push him 60 levels. I can’t give you any actual numbers on the cost, but it’s probably somewhere in the range of 30-50 gold. The cost depends heavily on your own stockpile of resources though. Jeweler, chef and artificer are usually the crafting professions with the lowest cost to level to 400 and there are numerous guides on the internet on how to do it efficiently. Huntsman and leatherworker are the most expensive, while weaponsmith, armorsmith and tailor fall somewhere in between.
I leveled two characters to lvl80 and I only used pure crafting for my third because I wanted to have him available at a specific time. I usually use crafting to push every new character by twenty levels, simply because it makes the start so much easier.
It’s really up to you and your available resources (your gold especially) and what is more important to you: spending some gold or investing the actual time leveling.
Why such high estimates? does nobody save up mats? yesterday i leveled from 0-400 huntsman and profited about 2g, only buying like 15 ori at the end, and that was only because i had used half my mats leveling weaponsmithing to 400 a few days ago. i don’t get it. mats don’t cost that much……
sure crafting professions share mats, but you shouldn’t have to buy all that many
Well in my case I have some mats alright, but I usually sell any mats that reach over 250 in collections because they start using bank space. I’m talking about leveling 4 accounts to 80 so I think any mats I have will run out pretty fast therefore I would end up buying the rest.
People seem to think if they farm the mats they’re free. That’s not correct. Those mats still have a value, so I would keep that in mind when calculating costs to level it.
Use the link someone provided before. Depending on the craft you want to do it can cost anywhere from 2g to around 12g. That’s not counting what little bit you can recover back from selling stuff you make.
Bear in mind, leveling from 1-80 doing crafting isn’t really a great idea. Yes, you have a level 80 character, but you don’t know anything about it or how to make it work well for you and you don’t have any skillpoints or basic map exploration done. If you want to level though crafting, you might want to consider the following path:
Level 1-20: Play.
Level 20-40: Craft.
Level 40-60: Play.
Level 60-70: Craft.
Level 70-80: Play.
Just a suggestion… at least this way you’ve got enough exploration done, particularly of the endgame areas. You’ll have enough skill-points to get your skills setup nicely. You’ll know your class reasonably well.
Why such high estimates? does nobody save up mats? yesterday i leveled from 0-400 huntsman and profited about 2g, only buying like 15 ori at the end, and that was only because i had used half my mats leveling weaponsmithing to 400 a few days ago. i don’t get it. mats don’t cost that much……
sure crafting professions share mats, but you shouldn’t have to buy all that many
Pretty sure you can’t use ori until you’re at 400, I think you’re confusing ori with mithril.
(edited by Nihevil.8024)
Pretty sure I’ve found a cooking guide somewhere 1-400 for around 2g and 1k karma, or something like that.
Pretty sure I’ve found a cooking guide somewhere 1-400 for around 2g and 1k karma, or something like that.
Only way you could do that is maybe launch prices and pre-cooking leveling nerfs. Its still by far the cheapest profession to level though.
Bear in mind, leveling from 1-80 doing crafting isn’t really a great idea. Yes, you have a level 80 character, but you don’t know anything about it or how to make it work well for you and you don’t have any skillpoints or basic map exploration done. If you want to level though crafting, you might want to consider the following path:
Level 1-20: Play.
Level 20-40: Craft.
Level 40-60: Play.
Level 60-70: Craft.
Level 70-80: Play.Just a suggestion… at least this way you’ve got enough exploration done, particularly of the endgame areas. You’ll have enough skill-points to get your skills setup nicely. You’ll know your class reasonably well.
This is the general method I use when leveling alts. The only additional thing I would toss in there is start with professions you don’t plan on using (e.g. You can switch free of charge to other professions, so max out something like cooking + a profession that you have tons of mats already banked from other chars on and then switch to your end-game professions for free – Saves a bit of money and lets you max out 4 prof’s easily).
Bear in mind, leveling from 1-80 doing crafting isn’t really a great idea. Yes, you have a level 80 character, but you don’t know anything about it or how to make it work well for you and you don’t have any skillpoints or basic map exploration done. If you want to level though crafting, you might want to consider the following path:
Level 1-20: Play.
Level 20-40: Craft.
Level 40-60: Play.
Level 60-70: Craft.
Level 70-80: Play.Just a suggestion… at least this way you’ve got enough exploration done, particularly of the endgame areas. You’ll have enough skill-points to get your skills setup nicely. You’ll know your class reasonably well.
I usually level from 1-65 then craft to 75 and then farm pent/shelt in orr.
People seem to think if they farm the mats they’re free. That’s not correct. Those mats still have a value, so I would keep that in mind when calculating costs to level it.
Even if the mats have “value”, its still not gold out of your pocket if you harvest / play. That said, even though I harvest everything in sight (outside of wvw) when playing pve, I still have to supplement mats off the TP to craft.
Its not a free ride to leveling no matter how you look at it. But, where crafting will save you a lot of gold is being able to craft your own exotics for multiple alts.
If I only played 1 or 2 alts, I’d never touch a tradeskill. Putting number to it would be difficult since you sell crafted items back on the TP or at a merchant. Or once you’re crafting items 68 or above, you’re salvaging them for ecto (or selling them if the going price is higher than ecto…then buying ecto and pocketing the change)
(edited by Raf.1078)
Pretty sure I’ve found a cooking guide somewhere 1-400 for around 2g and 1k karma, or something like that.
Only way you could do that is maybe launch prices and pre-cooking leveling nerfs. Its still by far the cheapest profession to level though.
The link someone posted before: http://gw2crafts.saladon.net/ disagrees with you.
I’ve done it this way myself and it costs a small amount of karma and around 2g total if you have NO mats and no heart vendors to make use of.
ok so i think i am having trouble understanding the crafting to lv80 deal. maybe i am doing it wrong, maybe i am not as skilled as the rest. but i tried to craft to 80 over the weekend, spent about 1.5 gold, got to 100/400 artificer on an alt, but only gained xp for 1.5 levels. for my preparation for the grind to The Bifrost, my ele was already lv80, so the crafting things i did not get to experience the whole leveling to 80, starting from scratch.
do i need to stick with it more, or -
1. get crafting to 400 (max)
2. make high-tier (400?) items (spending more gold for those mats) to get the XP to get to 80
i have 10 gold sitting in my bank, and have started a guardian. i would like to craft to level 80 this time around to avoid most of the PvE, and be 80 and geared before attempting my lv10 story mission. i was using the “discovering” method at pwniversity on my ele.
ok so i think i am having trouble understanding the crafting to lv80 deal. maybe i am doing it wrong, maybe i am not as skilled as the rest. but i tried to craft to 80 over the weekend, spent about 1.5 gold, got to 100/400 artificer on an alt, but only gained xp for 1.5 levels. for my preparation for the grind to The Bifrost, my ele was already lv80, so the crafting things i did not get to experience the whole leveling to 80, starting from scratch.
do i need to stick with it more, or -
1. get crafting to 400 (max)
2. make high-tier (400?) items (spending more gold for those mats) to get the XP to get to 80i have 10 gold sitting in my bank, and have started a guardian. i would like to craft to level 80 this time around to avoid most of the PvE, and be 80 and geared before attempting my lv10 story mission. i was using the “discovering” method at pwniversity on my ele.
The xp you get rises dramatically the higher you get in your crafting profession. All in all you will gain ten levels per 400 crafting. So, yes, you need to stick with it more.
thanks for the heads up! i will get going on that sometime soon.
and just to be clear, it is the combination of crafting part, and the “Discovery”?
You get something like:
0-100 = 1 level
100-200 = 2 levels
200-300 = 3 levels
300-400 = 4 levels
I really can’t say how much it costs. I have only spent about 70s on the TP to level my crafting, I saved all my crafting stuff myself and never sold anything.
But if I did, there would have been value in that, so you could say I “lost” coin by not selling the materials and leveling a craft instead.
My biggest problem right now are the T6 bloods. I want to make my own exotic bow, but I need 25 bloods to make the dowels for the insignia. I can’t find this blood anywhere. I know I can use the mystic forge with T5 bloods, but geez, should’t I be able to find the actual materials I need without having to lose 50x T5’s just to get maybe 8 or so of T6?
I don’t want to buy the from the TP. I don’t want to use the mystic forge. I want to go out, find my bloods and make my own bow. Since the legendary is just a dream, aptly named The Dreamer since I’m a SB ranger, this is the best I can do.
I want to do it myself. Trolls in Frostgorge, no go. Skelks in WvW, no go. Sigh. Two weeks now and still not even close to my bow.
Bear in mind, leveling from 1-80 doing crafting isn’t really a great idea. Yes, you have a level 80 character, but you don’t know anything about it or how to make it work well for you and you don’t have any skillpoints or basic map exploration done. If you want to level though crafting, you might want to consider the following path:
Level 1-20: Play.
Level 20-40: Craft.
Level 40-60: Play.
Level 60-70: Craft.
Level 70-80: Play.
I leveled my first character without crafting, but now I’m working on my first alt and my choice was to craft level to 40 and then level int the open world from there. There are three primary reasons:
1) You get more reward playing in high level areas. Leveling in 40 to 80 areas is going to net you more than leveling off and on, so I’ll have more resources when I hit level cap to gear up or start another alt. I know a lot of people prefer to use crafting to do the last 60-80 push, but that makes no sense from a reward standpoint since you’re likely to go for zone completion in the 60+ areas and hunt high tier mats anyway.
2) I find most of the game’s professions feel clunky until you get to at least the second tier of traits. I’d rather get partway to what my character is actually going to be like at endgame than mess around without utilities or any traits.
3) Get leveled halfway and you are able to participate in more things like dungeons, WvW and less likely to find yourself locked out of things like limited time events that run into higher level areas.
People seem to think if they farm the mats they’re free. That’s not correct. Those mats still have a value, so I would keep that in mind when calculating costs to level it.
I disagree. If it cost me nothing to achieve, then I consider them as free. Doesn’t matter if they can be sold on the TP, if I didn’t spend any money on it, then it is free.
People seem to think if they farm the mats they’re free. That’s not correct. Those mats still have a value, so I would keep that in mind when calculating costs to level it.
I disagree. If it cost me nothing to achieve, then I consider them as free. Doesn’t matter if they can be sold on the TP, if I didn’t spend any money on it, then it is free.
Almost true, because in technicalities you’re looking at an expended cost since everyone is trying to analyze this as an economist rather than a person.
If you have the materials on hand, then the only actual cost is time. If you intend to craft with the materials then they don’t have a value since if you sold them you’d have to buy them back in order to use them. Or I guess you could look at the value of raw Orichalcum Ore in the tooltip and the value of it off Black Lion and note the discrepancy. The value of ore you have in hand is irrelevant since it’s not costing you anything to obtain.
Yes, you could be selling it and earning money. But since we’re talking about crafting . . . that’s not at all important to the discussion. You need materials to craft, and you’re not buying the stuff you already have, therefore measuring it into the cost of making it seems . . . really silly.
I disagree. If it cost me nothing to achieve, then I consider them as free. Doesn’t matter if they can be sold on the TP, if I didn’t spend any money on it, then it is free.
You are certainly free to think so, but in economics there is a term called “opportunity cost”, which means that by doing one thing you can’t do the other. i.e. if you use your resources for crafting, you can’t sell them and vice versa. The cost in this case is represented by the potential market value of your harvested resources.
Also it didn’t cost you nothing to get those resources. You invested time gathering them after all. Granted, most of the time it’s simply a matter of just hitting up nodes along your way, but it’s not nothing.
I disagree. If it cost me nothing to achieve, then I consider them as free. Doesn’t matter if they can be sold on the TP, if I didn’t spend any money on it, then it is free.
You are certainly free to think so, but in economics there is a term called “opportunity cost”, which means that by doing one thing you can’t do the other. i.e. if you use your resources for crafting, you can’t sell them and vice versa. The cost in this case is represented by the potential market value of your harvested resources.
Also it didn’t cost you nothing to get those resources. You invested time gathering them after all. Granted, most of the time it’s simply a matter of just hitting up nodes along your way, but it’s not nothing.
This is why picking up pennies off the ground costs you more than the value of a penny, mind you, so you should totally leave any on the ground and not pick them up. It’s losing you money, and that’s been scientifically proven.
I disagree. If it cost me nothing to achieve, then I consider them as free. Doesn’t matter if they can be sold on the TP, if I didn’t spend any money on it, then it is free.
You are certainly free to think so, but in economics there is a term called “opportunity cost”, which means that by doing one thing you can’t do the other. i.e. if you use your resources for crafting, you can’t sell them and vice versa. The cost in this case is represented by the potential market value of your harvested resources.
Also it didn’t cost you nothing to get those resources. You invested time gathering them after all. Granted, most of the time it’s simply a matter of just hitting up nodes along your way, but it’s not nothing.
This is why picking up pennies off the ground costs you more than the value of a penny, mind you, so you should totally leave any on the ground and not pick them up. It’s losing you money, and that’s been scientifically proven.
True.
If you can pick up 1 penny every ten seconds off the ground; thats 6 pennies per minute, which is 360 pennies per hour, which is $3.60 per hour. The question is, what could you be doing instead of picking up those pennies that would net you more than $3.60 per hour?
I disagree. If it cost me nothing to achieve, then I consider them as free. Doesn’t matter if they can be sold on the TP, if I didn’t spend any money on it, then it is free.
You are certainly free to think so, but in economics there is a term called “opportunity cost”, which means that by doing one thing you can’t do the other. i.e. if you use your resources for crafting, you can’t sell them and vice versa. The cost in this case is represented by the potential market value of your harvested resources.
Also it didn’t cost you nothing to get those resources. You invested time gathering them after all. Granted, most of the time it’s simply a matter of just hitting up nodes along your way, but it’s not nothing.
This is why picking up pennies off the ground costs you more than the value of a penny, mind you, so you should totally leave any on the ground and not pick them up. It’s losing you money, and that’s been scientifically proven.
True.
If you can pick up 1 penny every ten seconds off the ground; thats 6 pennies per minute, which is 360 pennies per hour, which is $3.60 per hour. The question is, what could you be doing instead of picking up those pennies that would net you more than $3.60 per hour?
Working a second or third job, naturally. That’s less than minimum wage in most places, I’ll note . . .
A good example is elder wood logs.
The cost of me going around chopping elder wood logs is no longer economically feasable. I costs me 4 copper per whack of an orichalcum axe and the log sells for 11 copper on the TP. Once you factor in the TP tax of 15% your left with about 8 copper per log minus the 4 copper per whack with your axe and thats 4 copper per log. The net return on chopping elder wood logs is very very low.
A good example is elder wood logs.
The cost of me going around chopping elder wood logs is no longer economically feasable. I costs me 4 copper per whack of an orichalcum axe and the log sells for 11 copper on the TP. Once you factor in the TP tax of 15% your left with about 8 copper per log minus the 4 copper per whack with your axe and thats 4 copper per log. The net return on chopping elder wood logs is very very low.
You also got XP, and about 20 copper profit for a few seconds of tapping it. Good return in my book.
What you want is the dynamic crafting guide, which uses TP prices to generate the cheapest way to level a craft. LInk: http://gw2crafts.saladon.net/
Reddit thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/15den2/dynamic_crafting_guide_with_suggestions_to_buy/
A good example is elder wood logs.
The cost of me going around chopping elder wood logs is no longer economically feasable. I costs me 4 copper per whack of an orichalcum axe and the log sells for 11 copper on the TP. Once you factor in the TP tax of 15% your left with about 8 copper per log minus the 4 copper per whack with your axe and thats 4 copper per log. The net return on chopping elder wood logs is very very low.
Don’t use the orichalcum axe. Use the mithril axe, and it’s much cheaper. Not enough to make a log-gathering run super profitable, but enough that I’ll grab them as I run past.
If you gather regularly, get a bag full of all the gathering tools and switch as appropriate. It saves a surprising amount of money. You can also get a good deal on the gathering tools with the commendations.
(edited by Gilosean.3805)
A good example is elder wood logs.
The cost of me going around chopping elder wood logs is no longer economically feasable. I costs me 4 copper per whack of an orichalcum axe and the log sells for 11 copper on the TP. Once you factor in the TP tax of 15% your left with about 8 copper per log minus the 4 copper per whack with your axe and thats 4 copper per log. The net return on chopping elder wood logs is very very low.
Note: you don’t need the highest level axe for Elder Wood, only for Ancient Wood. Elder Wood you can work with Mithril. So, your calculations are off.
What you want is the dynamic crafting guide, which uses TP prices to generate the cheapest way to level a craft. LInk: http://gw2crafts.saladon.net/
Reddit thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/15den2/dynamic_crafting_guide_with_suggestions_to_buy/
A good example is elder wood logs.
The cost of me going around chopping elder wood logs is no longer economically feasable. I costs me 4 copper per whack of an orichalcum axe and the log sells for 11 copper on the TP. Once you factor in the TP tax of 15% your left with about 8 copper per log minus the 4 copper per whack with your axe and thats 4 copper per log. The net return on chopping elder wood logs is very very low.
Don’t use the orichalcum axe. Use the mithril axe, and it’s much cheaper. Not enough to make a log-gathering run super profitable, but enough that I’ll grab them as I run past.
If you gather regularly, get a bag full of all the gathering tools and switch as appropriate. It saves a surprising amount of money. You can also get a good deal on the gathering tools with the commendations.
Not having to switch axes on different types of logs is an inconvenience I’m willing to pay for but, I get your point. I can spend my time far more productively than chopping wood. That was the point I was trying to make.
Not having to switch axes on different types of logs is an inconvenience I’m willing to pay for but, I get your point. I can spend my time far more productively than chopping wood. That was the point I was trying to make.
True, you could always salvage any drop not Masterwork or above with Basic Kits and manage to turn around enough to make the Kit’s cost back. Even more so if you happen to get a Tier 6 material (Gossamer, Ancient Wood . . .) back out of it.
Of course, the trees are guaranteed at least 3 logs with a chance of up to 6, and maybe a Hidden Stash at the level of the tree you’re chopping. So I suppose the reward value of a tree is dependent on whether you only get 3 logs or . . . if as I do . . . you average out to around 4.5 logs over a course of time.
So just yesterday I switched from my 80 guardian to my 50 elementalist at the last boss in AC for some experience, then some guy whispered me why I didn’t level by crafting. I told them because it’s expensive then he went ahead and told me it’s only about 20 gold from 1-80, and that he level 4 toons from 1-80 with only 60g.
I thought the cost was closer to 40g per character, anyway prices have changed or what’s up? Cause if it’s 20g I’m pretty sure I’d rather do that and just farm cof for a day to achieve that amount.
Yeah it’s definitely more than 20g, leveling my Necromancer I start with cooking, it’s the cheapest way to get ~10-15 levels(Depending on crafting booster and if below level 20). Maxing cooking costs a little over 2 gold.
After that you do Artificer and Jewelcrafting, which costs about 5-6g each, total of 10-12 gold for both. Once you re-sell the rares you make you’ll get about 2g back from each, total of ~4 gold.
Everything after that costs about 10-12g each. So if you’re being realistic, it costs anywhere between 65-70g. to max out one character to 80 solely on crafting.
I really can’t say how much it costs. I have only spent about 70s on the TP to level my crafting, I saved all my crafting stuff myself and never sold anything.
But if I did, there would have been value in that, so you could say I “lost” coin by not selling the materials and leveling a craft instead.
My biggest problem right now are the T6 bloods. I want to make my own exotic bow, but I need 25 bloods to make the dowels for the insignia. I can’t find this blood anywhere. I know I can use the mystic forge with T5 bloods, but geez, should’t I be able to find the actual materials I need without having to lose 50x T5’s just to get maybe 8 or so of T6?
I don’t want to buy the from the TP. I don’t want to use the mystic forge. I want to go out, find my bloods and make my own bow. Since the legendary is just a dream, aptly named The Dreamer since I’m a SB ranger, this is the best I can do.
I want to do it myself. Trolls in Frostgorge, no go. Skelks in WvW, no go. Sigh. Two weeks now and still not even close to my bow.
I understand wanting to do it yourself. But, buying and selling on the TP is as much a part of the game as questing for it. If you’ve never bought anything, you likely have stacks of 250 of lesser mats. Split the stacks, sell them off…then buy whatever T6 blood you are missing with the take from the lesser mat sales. And get your new bow.
Trade was as much a part of life in the distant past as it is now.
People seem to think if they farm the mats they’re free. That’s not correct. Those mats still have a value, so I would keep that in mind when calculating costs to level it.
I disagree. If it cost me nothing to achieve, then I consider them as free. Doesn’t matter if they can be sold on the TP, if I didn’t spend any money on it, then it is free.
Almost true, because in technicalities you’re looking at an expended cost since everyone is trying to analyze this as an economist rather than a person.
If you have the materials on hand, then the only actual cost is time. If you intend to craft with the materials then they don’t have a value since if you sold them you’d have to buy them back in order to use them. Or I guess you could look at the value of raw Orichalcum Ore in the tooltip and the value of it off Black Lion and note the discrepancy. The value of ore you have in hand is irrelevant since it’s not costing you anything to obtain.
Yes, you could be selling it and earning money. But since we’re talking about crafting . . . that’s not at all important to the discussion. You need materials to craft, and you’re not buying the stuff you already have, therefore measuring it into the cost of making it seems . . . really silly.
The value of the materials are completely relevant. Especially in the case where the OP was asking how much it cost to level to 400. Someone may have only spent 2gold out of pocket, but they lost X amount of gold because they chose to use it instead of sell it. So it’s not correct to say it only cost you 2g to level to 400. It cost you 2g and the price of what you could have gotten from the materials you had.
Gathering. Isn’t. Free. It’s not even free money since you invested your time for the materials.
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