Guild Wars 2

Just wondering, as a player who came by around the time HoT released, is crafting a character to 80 still possible/viable?

It may be possible, but the cost would ne exorbitant. Those who go by the crafting route mostly just get the base crafts to 400 and get the few remaining levels in some other ways. Crafting beyond 400 is expensive and scribing is so from the start.

Not advised at all. It is cost prohibitive and not useful to have a single character with all the crafting professions maxed as you can only have two of them active and need to pay to switch. With the gem store upgrades, you can technically have up to four crafting professions active.

A single crafting profession gives about eight levels without boosters, I think. My math may be a little off, since there have been several changes made to the crafting system, since I maxed all of mine.

You are much better served by leveling with a mix of crafting, exploration, and renown hearts.

Aiming for high level crafting is useful as it is one of the easier (and guaranteed) ways of getting ascended gear, albeit more time consuming.

Ah ok then, think i’ll just heart to 30 then dungeon from there, thanks for all of the advice guys

I know it used to be quite popular, but I think there’s been quite a few changes since then. In particular the price of crafting materials has gone up due to increased demand (it used to be you literally couldn’t give away silk and thick leather) and when they introduced ascended crafting they reduced the XP given so now you can’t get to level 80 just by crafting to 400.

Chef is still pretty cheap and can be useful to make endgame food.

I have crafted two characters to fairly high levels and I joined the game at around the same time (I crafted one character to 50 or 60). I needed those crafts anyways, so I crafted them to 450, and then used time gated ascended mats to get them to 475. These characters were alts so I didn’t feel an overwhelming need to play them and I created them to be characters that were maxed out on those particular crafts. I did this with my mesmer, she’s my cook and my jeweler.

Any craft you still haven’t got 400 (or even 500 if you can spare the money) aside from scribe is well-worth it. Not because it’s a smart way to level, but you might as well get the experience as well as the craft.

Aside from that, just… don’t.