Guild Wars 2

I love crafting and being self-sufficient, but also want to be practical and realize that leveling / gear drops go so fast in the early levels in most games that crafting early for gear isn’t usually worth it.

I plan to get the crafting certificate for 3 crafts per char (unless there’s something better to spend the 800 gems on for my first char?), then my warrior will be my first char to level / craft and focus on Armorsmithing, Weaponsmithing, and Jewler

Around what level range will leveling and loot drops slow enough to make crafting my own gear worthwhile?

leveling and loot drops will never slow. its always at a steady constant if you are exploring the world.

you can even further increase your exp gain by doing all the quests you find, using cheep oils and food for a extra 20% exp from kills as well as killing “off road” monsters that give a ton of extra bonus exp.

when it comes to gear youll never rly have to worry about it in pvE. just make sure they are up to your level and you have weapon and armor npcs all around you.

Eventually you can buy better blue /green ones from the Trading post and enhance them with +10-15 power /precision runes ( 60-90 permannet stat is great).

Karma gear that you can find all over the world form the <3 quests you do also provide semi-free green gear thats just as great. they often even some with runes.

Personally i use crafting when i want to lvl it to lvl 500 for ascended armor.
Or if i want to lvl up from lvl 70-80 quickly by crafting to lvl 500 .

You should also know that crafting can become pretty expensive even when you know what youre doing and using crafting boosters.

as for your 800 gems i suggest buying character inventory bag slots (can buy 2/3 extra nes with 800gems)

You are able to lvl up ALL craftings with 1 character, but only have 2 active craftings at any time. If you have weapon and armor crafting now you must pay a small fee to switch one of your current crafting with another one such as accessory crafting.

NOTE:
- Character inventory bag expansions are character bound. you dont unlock more space for your other characters, only the one you use it on.
-Crafting is also character bound, lvling weaponsmith with a warrior doesnt lvl it for your other characters

If you’re only going to level one crafting profession at the moment, I would actually suggest Jeweller or Chef. Armorsmith crafts only heavy armour, Leatherworker only medium armour, Tailor only light armour, but the trinkets or food you craft can be used for all your characters, regardless of their profession.

Loot drops won’t slow down, but you might not always get the gear with the stats you want. Still, if you don’t have much crafting material in storage yet it’s probably cheaper to buy your gear off Trading Post until you’ve reached level 80. Otherwise, you might find yourself getting gear drops every now and then with better stats than something you’ve just crafted – verrry frustrating.

Be careful when equipping armour from karma merchants because you won’t be able to salvage any runes you equip with that gear.

There is no need to craft anything but ascended and possibly jewelry.

You will get a full set of rare gear from the story, and you can buy exotic armor for Karma and dungeon tokens.

The only thing that isnt easily handed out is quality jewelry.