Guild Wars 2

I don’t really get it tbh. I bought loads of stacks of copper, refined it in to ingots, crafted a load of useless components, then rinsed and repeated once I was high enough to do it for iron. Now my armoursmith level is 101 and I have no idea what to do next. I am still only able to craft iron & bronze components, and some insignia, however the level goes up very very slow, meaning I’d have to spend loads of gold on materials just to go up a few levels.

Obviously I’m doing something wrong, but I have no idea what?

You need to concentrate on discovering new recipes, not repeatedly making the same items over and over again. You get a HUGE XP boost from discoveries, so you’ll fly through the levels quickly if you keep that in mind.

As an example, you discover the recipe to make a +POW Axe and get XP for making it and bonus XP for discovering it. Making five more of them will use up all those mats but not give you the bonus again. But, if you were to next discover the recipes for a +VIT Axe, a +Healing Axe, +CD Axe, +Precision Axe and a + Toughness Axe, you would get that big bonus five times for the same amount of materials as repeating that first recipe. And they all follow a similar formula so it’s easy to figure out what to you should make next.

When I craft, I would choose the items that required the least amount of materials and focus on them. As a Huntsman, I would stick with Warhorns and Torches. Then I would make enough different types of each ONCE, until I unlocked some new recipes, then focus on those. I’d also try to plan out how many different weapons I would need to complete the whole tier and make their components early so I can benefit from the XP before they go grey. It takes a bit of planning and knowledge of the system, but it pays off. I’ve been able to hit 400 in both Huntsman and Jeweler on my main, with plenty of spare materials left over for my alts to start crafting with.

There are some decent crafting guides out there. You should check them out because they will go into a lot more detail about the mechanics.

1. Don’t buy crafting materials, harvest them yourself.
2. Crafting in GW2 isn’t about making 1000 bronze bars, it’s about discovering new recipes. That’s how you progress your crafting level. You can do it the other way but you will quickly hit a brick wall.
3. Consider salvaging the components that you have made to recover crafting materials if they are of no use to you.
4. Check out the crafting videos out there. They will tell you all you need to know about how to level crafting. It’s not something you power level.

Have you tried to craft the equipment once you’ve refined the components? I noticed that if you craft the same type of armor or weapon with each type of insignia, your level in it grows like crazy.

I started a Ranger recently and had him start leatherworking after I collected tons of leather overtime on my first character, and I ended up getting it up to level 80ish when he was still level 5.

Yeah, refining mats and grinding out multiple copies of gear doesn’t get you anything, you have to discover stuff. For things like armorsmith, your basic stuff to discover basically has three components: an outer piece, and inner piece, and a rune/insignia/whatever. The most efficient way to level is:
- Making insignias: look at how many individual pieces of armor you can make, ie leggings, chest, arms, etc. Usually it’s like 5 or 6. Make 1 insignia of each type for each of these armor pieces. (ie if you can make 6 armor pieces, make 6 vital insignias, 6 precise insignias, etc).
- Making armor components: look at how many types of insignias you now have. Make that many inner and outer armor components of each type. (ie if you made 3 types of insignias, make 3 chest panels, 3 chest linings, 3 legging panels, 3 legging linings, etc).
- Now go to discovery and start combining components with insignias. Mix your chest pieces with each type of insignia, mix your legging pieces with each type of insignia, etc. If you made, for example, 3 types of insignias and 6 types of armor components, you should be able to discover 18 new recipes. This is where you rake in the XP.
- Note you don’t have to do this process all at once, you just have to keep track of what you have and haven’t made. For instance, maybe I only have enough mats to make 2 Precise insignias. I’ll make the coat components and the legging components to do those discoveries, and wait till I can make more insignias before I make the arms/shoes/hat/etc components.

Important note: Mats can be stored in the collections tab, but components take up bank space – don’t make components until you’re ready to use them.

Hope that helps. For more info, check out the three crafting guides by Enigmious on youtube, they are very very good.