Guild Wars 2

I’m currently playing a Thief and am unsure if I should even worry about crafting yet. I assume if it’s important late game I should start now (I just reached the hub in the human starter zone with all the crafting vendors).

I assume I need weapon smithing for making Legendary weapons.

Also is cooking any good or can you just get by buying food from the Auction House? If it’s not good, what would be a good secondary next to Weapon Smithing?

It gives some experience as you level it. It helps get specific stat combos or runes/sigils cheaper than otherwise. There are some account bound things that you can only get by crafting (mostly ascended weapons/armor).

That said, there are other alternatives for some of those in the game now. You could sell every material you ever get, buy what you need off the Trading Post, and be a happy person. You might miss out on certain craftable things. It’s not considered ‘profitable’ unless you spend some time playing the trading post to get good deals.

I value cooking because if I want to eat lots of food, it tends to be cheaper to make it. I can also craft what my guildmates like out of the foodstores that I don’t tend to use. Its not profitable for me.

ImpishX.8702:

I’m currently playing a Thief and am unsure if I should even worry about crafting yet. I assume if it’s important late game I should start now (I just reached the hub in the human starter zone with all the crafting vendors).

I assume I need weapon smithing for making Legendary weapons.

Also is cooking any good or can you just get by buying food from the Auction House? If it’s not good, what would be a good secondary next to Weapon Smithing?

You don’t need crafting to progress your character. Due to the efficiency of the trading system, there are only a few times when crafting is significantly cheaper than buying (using custom offers) on the TP. Those times are when new items are introduced (such as this week) or something changes in people’s favorite builds (thus spiking or nerfing demand) (and this also happened this week).

Take your time with the game. As you get comfortable with your character(s), you will begin to see that there are opportunities to do stuff with crafting that might interest you.

ImpishX.8702:

I’m currently playing a Thief and am unsure if I should even worry about crafting yet. I assume if it’s important late game I should start now (I just reached the hub in the human starter zone with all the crafting vendors).

I assume I need weapon smithing for making Legendary weapons.

Also is cooking any good or can you just get by buying food from the Auction House? If it’s not good, what would be a good secondary next to Weapon Smithing?

Crafting is only important (imo) for making ascended and legendary stuff which is end-game so no need to worry about it yet…. (or for playing the market by making items to sell).

As a thief, you will most likely want leather working to make medium armour and weapon smithing to make swords and/or daggers. Cooking is nice to have as well but a character can only have two disciplines active at a time (or up to four with the purchase of Additional Crafting Licenses). To switch between disciplines costs in-game money so what I have done is to have all 8 disciplines spread out on 4 different characters (2 each) so that I never have to pay to switch disciplines or purchase crafting licenses.

I would only bother with leveling-up leather working and weapon smithing as you go as a way of preventing materials from overflowing your bank and material storage.

Like a lot of things in GW2, crafting makes your life easier.

You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to as you will level fine and fast even without the XP from crafting. You can get items from the AH, or use other currencies like Karma or Laurels to get them. You can even get a good amount of money by selling all those mats you come across or get from salvaging items.

But, crafting can make your life easier. Certain crafting professions allow you to get 15, 18 and 20-slot bags far cheaper than you would at the AH. That also goes for weapons. After my weaponmakers could do the Pearl weapons, Exotics weren’t an issue for me.

And there’s Cooking. The stuff you can get from Cooking.

Don’t do it if you think it’s a hassle. But outside of the Legendaries the mats to make things are practically being thrown our way, whether through drops (or the salvage from them) or all those nodes you come across while touring Tyria.

Besides, it gives achievements. You do know you get stuff from getting certain levels of achievements, right?

I levelled all the crafting professions (and will be starting on the new one soon) and I don’t use them often, but they do occasionally come in useful. For example when Mawdrey was added to the game I was able to make a lot of gold by making and selling the plant food (which is time gated and requires high crafting levels) and then save a lot of gold when I came to make it myself.

The vast majority of things that are craftable can also be bought from the Trading Post, so if you’re not interested in it that’s an alternative. Things which can’t be traded (like ascended weapons and armor) can often be acquired in another way. It may not be quicker, easier or cheaper but it is an alternative and again if you don’t like the idea of crafting it may be worth checking your options before you start.

But if you like the idea of making your own items, or you know you’ll want to craft something in future then it’s well worth getting started.

If you want it for a specific purpose I strongly recommend you use the wiki to research what you’re doing before you start though. For example you mentioned levelling Weaponsmithing to make legendary weapons, but that will only help you with 9 of the 20 currently available legendaries, the other 11 need different crafts, and those 9 all need different secondary crafts. It would be extremely frustrating if you levelled Weaponsmithing, then decided to make The Bifrost and had to start over with Artificer and Cooking.