Guild Wars 2

Leatherworking is the last craft I need to bring to 500, and I can’t seem to manage it without paying exorbitant prices. I admit it wasn’t high on the bucket list right after HoT came out, and now I’m stuck at around 465. Any hints (bar the “farm gold/buy gems and buy what you need”) for the poor leatherworker in these persistent times of extravagant hardened leather prices ? I’d like to craft a few ascended medium armor pieces for raiding with my guildies…

Apart from pushing all possible ecto and obsi recipes and the two elonian/damask recipes that still give some progress towards my leather person and scraping whatever leather I can afford for proper inventing , anything else ? I already salvage all leather items with a master kit (8 hours normal gaming nets me 1-2 squares per day). Anyone else having these issues or am I overlooking something ?

Googling the subject gave these interesting results – strictly fyi and backroom discussion:
data from gw2spidy, timepoints at Nov 1 2015 (a week after HoT release) and at Nov 30 2016 (today)
- hardened leather sections: avg sell price: 57c vs. 23s45c (x41 increase); avg sell listing volumes: 4000k vs. 28.9k (138-fold drop i.e., offers are 0.7% of what the available units volume was in 2015); avg buy listing volumes: 582k vs. 131k (4.4-fold drop i.e., demand has dropped to just below 25% of Nov 2015 levels)
- hardened leather squares : avg sell price: 1s82c vs. 72s23c (x40 increase); avg sell listing volumes: 217k vs. 17.4k (12.5-fold drop or 8% of Nov 2015); avg buy listing volumes: 139k vs. 104.6k (25% drop)
- no updated leveling guides for leatherworking since HoT release

Dire times indeed. Am I correct in concluding that leatherworking 500 leveling has become the most expensive and slowest of all the crafts (excluding scribing)? How do newer accounts cope with this ?

In the recent A Crack in the Ice AMA they’d said they’ll put in a way to farm leather in a future release.

Dulfy’s AMA summary

Did you consult gw2crafts.net?

Sadly, and not the answer you want, the best way is to spend those 8 hours farming gold then buy the mats to level crafting, using the above-mentioned site to minimise the costs. The good news is that you have not got too many levels to go.

It’s not fast, but churning out ascended crafting materials like dragonite ore requires level 450 and will get you to 475.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dragonite_Ingot

Wait until before wvw reset and use the critical crafting guild bonus for the best results. At 475 you have to craft exotics, so discover things like marauder’s which you can use on some toon some time to finish off 500.

Great replies with good pointers, thank you all.

You could also try promoting. You might get extra lucky. =)

Good luck.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

You could also try promoting. You might get extra lucky. =)

Good luck.

Is there karma armor that can be combined in MF then salvaged for thick leather that is in turn promoted? Not as efficient as farming gold or using gold but might be an option.

I’ve no idea. I just promoted Thick Leather which is acquired in abundance (at least, it is by me). I’ve little Karma left after purchasing all the Racial weapons for the Wardrobe Unlock.

http://gw2crafts.net/leatherworking.html
http://gw2crafts.net/leatherworking_400.html

It’s honestly not too bad— it costs around 100 gold to go from 0 to 500 which pales in comparison to the cost of actually crafting ascended armor. So if that is considered too costly, I don’t recommend crafting ascended armor or wait until stuff drops so you can use the mystic forge on it.

The best way to level ascended crafting I think at this point is to craft some ascended components such as elonian leather that you need for your armor set in advance. This will raise your level a bit and you will have made stuff you need anyways. You want to create as much overlap as possible to save money. If you’re thinking about mass refining t7 materials please don’t. Beyond the first few levels they give very little and also cost a bunch of reagents. But do refine the ones that you will need to make your set of armor.

Once you get to 470+, you’re stuck crafting exotic armor.

From experience, the best way to get to 500 from your point is to consider crafting an exotic set of armor for an alt that can use it.

As a side note, with the introduction of leather synthesizer, having a guild hall to mooch off of, or going into World vs World might net some leather as well. And this goes without saying, but fire a crafting booster as well.

I recently leveled Leatherworking to 500 while still making a profit.

I dropped around 30g on 1-400 with the help of gw2crafts.net, and then reached 500 within three days by crafting several items and selling them on the TP (sell orders). Disclaimer: It did require multiple rounds of crafting and selling, as well as some starting capital (around 100g). Some of which still is locked up in sell orders which I expect to go through within a couple of days. When all is done, I’ll have made around 80g in addition to having “finished” Leatherworking.

Obviously won’t go into detail what items I chose. There are a ton of resources available regarding crafting and trading, including several websites dedicated specifically to these topics. LW 400-500 will cost you 100g, however, so you might as well make some cash along the way.

You can also do a Cleric farm in BF, although not guaranteed, you stand a better chance to get the mats when you salvage them

Shwyx.8190:

I recently leveled Leatherworking to 500 while still making a profit.

Shwyx.8190:

Obviously won’t go into detail what items I chose.

So the point of your post was what exactly? Bragging?

Meanma.5623:

Shwyx.8190:

I recently leveled Leatherworking to 500 while still making a profit.

Shwyx.8190:

Obviously won’t go into detail what items I chose.

So the point of your post was what exactly? Bragging?

The point of my post was to offer a different perspective. A large number of players see the step from 400 to 500 (in any given crafting discipline) as a neccessary evil and a waste of gold, and don’t even consider alternate strategies. They’re there, though, and sometimes just stating this fact is all it takes.

You didn’t offer a different perspective, you just said “there’s a way to make money that I’m not going to tell you about”. That isn’t an alternative strategy.

Yeah, it’s really expensive now, but can be doesn’t have to be an overwhelming gold sink with a little research and patience.

My method was pretty straightforward. Cross reference what armorpiece/inscription combination you haven’t discovered yet with what pieces will sell for higher prices on the TP. Invest enough gold for the mats to “discover” that piece (or pieces, dependimg on what you can afford), then list the crafted armor on the TP. When it sells, sink the profit into the next piece(s) you want to discover. Rinse and repeat until you get to 500.. It won’t get you to 500 in a day, but it won’t drain all your gold away as if you bought it all at once.

Another poster mention refining ascended mats. Would totally agree with them on adding that in for the extra crafting XP.

Good luck!

General Health.9678:

You didn’t offer a different perspective, you just said “there’s a way to make money that I’m not going to tell you about”. That isn’t an alternative strategy.

Actually, it’s very reasonable. Crafting doesn’t need to cost you money; that is a VERY different perspective to what most people think. Just because he doesn’t spill the beans on how to do it doesn’t mean he’s not helpful. I know most people just want things handed to them but you know … this is worth the investigation if the player doesn’t want to go broken crafting.

Put in buy orders for leather and cloth and be patient until you have more than enough, several stacks. Then use guild buffs, a crafting booster or equivalent, and the discovery method all at once.

Farm gold, use it to buy materials, and play for a while. There is no deadline but you do need to build a material cache before the push to 500. Also, watch the trading post for prices so you can sell for profit, or at least not a terrible loss.

Ascended is far worse on the budget and is time gated so you will want to start acquiring materials way in advance.

I would recommend GW2 crafts (links further upthread in ArchonWing’s post), in addition to running metas like Auric Basin or wherever you find most fun, salvaging everything, keep what you need and sell what you don’t, and doing buy orders like Anchoku suggests.

You could also hit the (perma) rich mining nodes across the maps (specifically iron and platinum) - this can get a bit dull, but will generate cash in the form of something you won’t need in leatherworking.

If you have a spare slot and aren’t in a particular hurry, running a different character through some level appropriate map completion, farming those nodes as you go, helps lots. Do the PS, too. There’s a nice amount of T6 leather towards the end. You get a lot in drops through salvage, too, which may directly or indirectly help your goal.

Good luck with it!

ConusMagus.2637:

…..
I already salvage all leather items with a master kit (8 hours normal gaming nets me 1-2 squares per day). Anyone else having these issues or am I overlooking something ?

You can safe yourself some gold by just using a basic or other cheap kit for salvaging.
The kit level only determines the chance to get the upgraded item from it as well (it does not affect regular materials such as leather).

In general since runes and sigils are not worth anything (except for exotic ones) i would recommend following :
all white, blue, green items —> cheapest kit (or copper fed salvage-o-matic)
all rare (yellow) items < lv 68, cheapest kit (or copper fed salvage-o-matic)
all rare (yellow) items of lv 68 or higher, Mystic salvage kit*

All exotic items : Mystic salvage kit OR black lion salvage kit (depending on the rune /sigil it carries.

If the rune /sigil is expensive, use a black lion kit (if you have one) on it so you are 100% sure that you get the (expensive) upgrade in addition to the regular items you get when salvaging.

The change to master/mystic salvage kit is purely based on the fact that lv 68 or higher rare items and exotic items can give you ectoplasm when you salvage and with the better kit the chance to get them is higher. For all the other items you salvage, the expensive kit only improves the chance that you can get the rune/sigil from it in addition to regular salvage… and given the low prices for runes/sigils the extra salvage costs is not worth it. (i salvaged enough items (way over 1K green items with each type of kit) to assure you that the kit level does not help you get more leather or other crafting mats from your items) the only difference was that i got a lot more sigils when using the expensive kit. Other mats were not affected.

• mystic salvage kit is made in the mystic forge. You need 3 mystic forge stones (you can get those form daily login if you are lucky as its random), + a blue,a green and a yellow salvage kit (buy those at any merchant) in the mystic forge to make it and it has 250 uses. It has the same % chance as the master salvage kit. Alternative, use Master salvage kit (or silver fed salvage-o-matic) for the same result.

Good luck on gathering your leather and indeed as has been pointed out, Anet has stated that a T6 leather farm will be added in the future so that should help to get the supply of T6 leather up and the prizes to go down.

while i used the salvaged insignias (soldier, magi, rabid etc) right now its going to be a very grindy or very expensive process. the last 10 points for me were a real struggle.

Obtena.7952:

General Health.9678:

You didn’t offer a different perspective, you just said “there’s a way to make money that I’m not going to tell you about”. That isn’t an alternative strategy.

Actually, it’s very reasonable. Crafting doesn’t need to cost you money; that is a VERY different perspective to what most people think. Just because he doesn’t spill the beans on how to do it doesn’t mean he’s not helpful. I know most people just want things handed to them but you know … this is worth the investigation if the player doesn’t want to go broken crafting.

It’s not helpful, because it’s too vague. People say all the time you can make easy money off the TP, but those who do already know the techniques that allow ‘easy money’ — it takes some effort to become familiar with the markets and tools to do so.

I agree that it’s worth saying that it’s possible, but let’s not confuse that for actually helping most people find the alternative.

You could conceivably use gw2tp.com as a guide, use buy orders for insignias, stick to the stuff that is profitable. Just need to be careful and look at sales price history so you don’t get deceived by a temporary price pop and have your stuff stuck on the TP forever. My guess is that the guy who made a huge “profit” is of the mindset that materials that you farmed yourself are “free”.

Leatherworker 400 to 499 recipes:
https://www.gw2tp.com/recipes?levelmax=499&name=&levelmin=400&profession=6&offset=0

K I don’t know what everyone else is doing wrong, all I will say is copperfed salvage kit → salvage everything. This is coming from someone who plays small scale in wvw like 80% of my game time.

mailed ya 55g worth of hard leather op.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Obtena.7952:

General Health.9678:

You didn’t offer a different perspective, you just said “there’s a way to make money that I’m not going to tell you about”. That isn’t an alternative strategy.

Actually, it’s very reasonable. Crafting doesn’t need to cost you money; that is a VERY different perspective to what most people think. Just because he doesn’t spill the beans on how to do it doesn’t mean he’s not helpful. I know most people just want things handed to them but you know … this is worth the investigation if the player doesn’t want to go broken crafting.

It’s not helpful, because it’s too vague. People say all the time you can make easy money off the TP, but those who do already know the techniques that allow ‘easy money’ — it takes some effort to become familiar with the markets and tools to do so.

I agree that it’s worth saying that it’s possible, but let’s not confuse that for actually helping most people find the alternative.

What you’re asking for isn’t “helping people find an alternative”. It’s “spelling out, step by step, what they have to do”.

That is something I am not going to do, for what I think are obvious reasons. Call it selfish, but it took me time and a certain risk (in the form of gold invested) to make a profit off crafting disciplines. I am not going to give that away just like that – both to protect my potential profits (small as they are) and as a matter of principle.

As I said, there’s a wealth of knowledge available for everyone interested in spending a minimum of time and learning something new. Everyone else can just get on the forums and complain that crafting is too expensive.

Having gone through all the replies (again) I have to thank all of you (again) for the excellent hints and tips. A big thank you to the sender of materials, that of course was a very quick fix.
And don’t worry about having to read between the lines. Having played a certain space pilot game with a 99.9% player driven/controlled market for a long time, I know how to look for business opportunities in such an environment. The GW2 economy can’t provide the same richness, consistency or player control but I agree there’s more than enough potential if that is your play style (which it is occasionally for me too).
Thanks all.

Well, you can keep playing normally for 8 hours and coming up with nothing, or just do a bit of farming here and there and have enough gold to buy the mats you need in a few days. According to GW2crafts, 0-500 leatherworker should cost around 100g. That isn’t cheap, but it’s certainly cheaper than crafting the ascended armor you want to make once you reach 500!