(edited by Daulnay.4971)
Showing Posts For Daulnay.4971:
1 2
I cannot claim credit for developing this build – my son made it for his mother’s fabulous Charr mesmer, RuPaw. Glad you’ve found your feet, and are enjoying your mesmer!
Would you like to tank a Risen Champion in Orr…solo?
This is for I’m so tired of dying in solo play. :x
If you really don’t want to die, this tank mesmer build will work:
This build isn’t tuned for raids, fractals or PvP, it’s a open world PvE/dungeon build. Equipment is ordinary Exotic gear (Nomad’s, but Settler’s or Givers armor will work).
Survivability:
* 2464 Toughness, plus kill streak toughness from the sigil.
* All illusions are very tough, and they provide good distractions. It is easy to keep 3 illusions up.
* High health regen. Heal signet and runes replenish your health all the time. (over 445 health/sec. with 3 illusions up).
* High damage reduction. Keeping up a phantasmal defender reduces damage taken by 1/3 – one gets created on dodge as well as the utility skill. Another 9% damage reduction comes from having 3 illusions up, plus damage reduction from chaos armor.
* All shatters heal (over 1000 hp), remove conditions, give a boon, and give stability.
* Both the 2 and 4 skill for scepter/sword are blocks and create clones.
Notes:
* The signets in this build are for the passive effects, using them hurts more than it helps.
* If you’re running solo, switch out Time Warp for something else (like Moa for the CC reduction).
Some of you are missing the point:
the materials you need to gather to make the precursor actually can be sold for more gold than the precursor costs on the market. That amount of gold is also more than the cost of rares to flush down the mystic toilet (though there is the danger of getting nothing). so you pay substantially more for a sure thing.
It is not a trade of playing time for gold – it’s more gold and more time.
To the people defending the grind; Anet promised and sold GW2 as no-grind, no gating. That was what made GW2 special, better, and a pleasure to play. There are lots of games that play like HoT, and the old-school games are grindier. Except for GW1, which was less grindy than HoT.
So those of us who backed GW2, and enjoyed its different take on MMOs feel betrayed by HoT. What I’d like to see is the firing or forced resignation of the manager(s) responsible for this betrayal. I’m sure many of the developers opposed how this was structured, and some probably even got forced out or quit — HoT is a betrayal of the original company ethos.
I agree, ANET should add a story/quest line where players can help someone enslave Quaggans (and remove them from a zone).
Yes, I can’t log in either.
You can, if you want to make the effort, level a craft starting with less than 1 gold and end with more money than when you started. This is without farming for materials, just buying off the TP. Here’s what it will take:
1. Patience. You can save significant amounts of money by buying with offers instead of buying at the seller’s prices. But doing so takes a patience, because an order may take an hour or even a day to fill. And it may not fill at all if you get the offer price wrong.
2. Research time. Most people make everything from raw materials, but it’s often cheaper to buy some parts or refined materials from the TP (with offers). Right now, there are a lot of masterwork parts for sale far under the cost to make them, because of the Monthly masterwork crafting requirement. You’ll need to compare raw materials, intermediate materials, and part costs to determine which avenue is cheapest. You can use sites like GW2Spidy, but their prices lag the TP too much for me.
3. Karma. With Karma, you buy recipes to make rare item parts. The Rare recipes make parts for Level 35, 50, and 65 rare items. While Fine and Masterwork items rarely sell for a profit, you can usually find one or two rare ones that give a decent profit, but exactly which ones are profitable changes fairly quickly. If your goal is just to level up cheaply rather than actually make money, you can sell at or near your cost (but remember the 15% sales fee!).
Keep in mind that the road more travelled will be more expensive, because the other travellers drive up the cost of materials and low the prices of whatever you sell. So, I’d avoid using a guide.
Good luck!
Thanks. Sounds like crafting is a complete waste of time unless you are doing it to level up fast. WvW and dungeons level fast enough for me.
If you enjoy spending the time to do it well, crafting will make you decent money. Be aware that it’s a competitive free market, and very dynamic, so profit opportunities come and go quickly. After all, you’re in competition with the other crafters. If staying on top of market trends and ahead of the competition doesn’t appeal to you, then money-making by crafting probably isn’t for you.
And yes, you can make money by just acting as a merchant or speculator. The point has been made many times…. But only a crafter can take immediate advantage of the market imbalances between prices of raw materials, processed materials, parts, and finished goods. So that’s the niche — part merchant, part builder. Much like being in a manufacturing business in the real world, but without the contracts and relationships that make real-world manufacturing more stable.
Success takes a fair amount of skill and some practice, and requires a head for math and a stomach for risk, which a lot of players find unappealing. But some of us like to ‘waste our time’ this way, rather than grinding dungeons, or doing jumping puzzles.
If this sounds appealing, check out CassieGold’s or my various replies here. It’s not all that hard to do decently well. And it doesn’t require a huge grubstake, either. I’ve been able to level a craft to 400 profitably using no gathered materials and investing at the most 60 silver. What you do need is karma, to buy rare recipes from the crafting masters, because the easiest profitable crafting (on the way up) is level 35, 50, and 65 rare items.
It really should all even out in the end. With higher taxes, people should charge more on tp to make up the difference. It should only throttle the economy with regards to farming, which is fixed value. Other than that its just a bad math tax, screw up your profit margin and the tax will take your profit. :p
It doesn’t, though. With a sales (and listing) tax, it is harder to make a profit by just trading, and it is riskier to try and manipulate a market. Each cycle of buy-then-sell has to make over 15% instead of 0% (no tax) in order to profit. The added cost of each transaction chokes down pure trading, and discourages it in favor of other activities, like farming. Prices have to make a 15% swing before you see a profit from pure trading now. If it were 1%, there would be a much higher volume of trading (and the T kitten low enough as it is).
I suspect they will fix this, Ascended items break one of the stated goals of their game design.
The taxes have two parts, the 10% you pay as a sales fee, and a 5% listing fee. They accomplish different things.
The split tax introduces meaningful choice into the decision to list. You can list at a sure-to-sell price, and pay 15%. You can list at a higher price, and perhaps have to relist later at a lower one, losing your first 5%. Having to make a considered choice is part of what makes games interesting, and is good game design (you can find several essays about this at the Magic the Gathering website, in Mark Rosewater’s ‘Making Magic’ column).
The sales fee balances different activities in the game. Without the transaction cost, some people would spend a lot of time just buying and selling. Playing the TP would be the easiest way to make gold, spoiling the game. The sales fee makes it harder (but far from difficult) to make gold playing the TP, putting it in line with the effort required to make gold through other activities.
Do the taxes make more sense now?
There’s a fourth play-style to add to CassieGold’s list:
‘Crafting Geek’: This method levels and gains gold mainly by crafting. After earning an initial grubstake, you watch the TP for items you can craft profitably that also earn you levels. This method relies on completing events and dailies to earn karma, since most of the profit opportunities on the TP are rare (yellow) items made with parts from karma recipes. Other than that, you can sit in Lion’s Arch. Like any real-life manufacturer, you have to search hard for lowest-cost ingredients/parts, and adapt to the market quickly. Unlike a real manufacturer, you won’t develop a clientele and are therefore completely reliant on reacting to market conditions. You’ll need to watch the TP in real-time, rather than relying on web sites for analysis (they lag by a half-hour or so, which is way too long). You’ll make short production runs, since once the opportunity shows up on the web sites, it quickly disappears. Sometimes there won’t be a profit opportunity, and you’ll have to be patient. Getting your craft skill up to the first L35 rares is probably the hardest part. [Some people consider anything that involves watching the market to be merchanting rather than crafting. Since real manufacturers have to carefully watch costs and react to the market, I’d draw the line between the two elsewhere – merchants make money buy buying, transporting, and selling or buying in bulk and selling retail. Manufacturers buy, transform the materials, and sell them.]
A few things to keep in mind, and suggestions:
1. Most people make two or three really good friends during their lifetimes, and those are almost always made as adults. At 19, very few people have found their best friends. Those best friends are the ones that really matter. All you’ve lost so far is a little practice.
2. Many people get weirded out if you don’t behave in expected ways. My son has this problem, and found his first friends at age 14. If you want to get along with lots of people, you have to behave in conventional ways. But lots of people also are fine with unconventional behavior, especially in the subcultures like gamers, SCA, fandoms, the computer industry…‘nerd’ groups in general. Choice is yours.
3. A lot of people in this world feel lonely, so always remember you’re not alone in that. A lot of us accept and make peace with being lonely, and it makes us feel less nervous and needy. If you can make peace with it, your inner peace will (ironically) make friendships easier.
And advice…
4. Fight depression! Exercise, sleep, and a good diet go a long way. Cleanliness and basic grooming also helps, and lack of it pushes people away. Don’t be the guy in the ‘Gamer, please bathe!’ posters.
5. If you are kind and thoughtful, stay that way. Help other people, and stop worrying about being lonely.
6. If you haven’t already, learn how to listen. Practice paraphrasing (in your head) what people say to you in order to really understand what they’re saying. Ask questions. Learn how to do the back-and-forth of casual conversation. Most people like talking about themselves, and not so many are good listeners. If you’re thinking about the ‘me’, you’re doing it wrong. Be curious about them, forget about yourself.
If you don’t gather or salvage while leveling, it takes a lot of gold, yes. If you do gather and whatnot, you’ll still have to put in about 2-5g to finish it unless you grind more than doing events.
I’ve leveled up a craft on only 60s, without gathering any materials, only buying off the TP, just to see if I could do it. You can find profit opportunities if, as CassieGold says, you look at the TP and not at websites. They vanish quickly (usually), but other ones show up. You can even sometimes find profits crafting in the first tier, though the best profits come from making the gold rares at 35, 50, 65, and 80. The gold rares are really nice, and last ‘till the next gold level, if you craft for yourself. They’re the only not-max-level weapons/armor where there’s a good market (but only some are profitable at any moment).
The only craft I had trouble crafting up profitably was cooking, oddly. (I’ve maxed each out once, and am working some up again for Legendaries.)
Why do you want to level up armorsmith and weaponsmith?
If you want to make money at crafting, you should avoid using a guide, since it takes some effort and skill to make money and you’re better off developing the skills crafting up than at the endgame where it’s more expensive. In order to make money, you don’t need to start with much more than 1g — I’ve leveled up a craft with as little as 60s (and no materials from my bank). Look at the many, many posts on crafting profitably (including the titles complaining about how it’s unprofitable, they often contain hints from people who know how to do it profitably).
If you want to make your own weapons and armor as you level up, you’re better off buying greens off the TP, they are often sold below cost because people dump them while leveling up.
If you’re just trying to get a character partway to max through crafting, understand that the costs vary with the market conditions, and many people use guides — you’re following the well-trodden path using a guide, so it will be more expensive.
Yes, I know this doesn’t answer your question. Guides don’t tend to work well because market conditions change, because the xp rewarded can vary, and because (as mentioned) a lot of people following the same guide makes it a more expensive way to level up because the mob drives prices up/sales prices down.
(edited by Daulnay.4971)
<cheers CassieGold and Esplen>
Crafting takes effort and skill, agreed… I’ve been able to find profitable opportunities at every tier, too. Sometimes, it’s crafting the intermediate stuff, sometimes it’s buying intermediate parts to make finished goods. Once, I even made money buying parts to craft green items for sale to the vendor! But you have to look at the current market, not the much-delayed websites.
And yes, you make more profit crafting with materials that you gather yourself. When you sell your materials on the market, the Black Lion guys take their 15% cut. When you buy on the market, their cut has been taken out from the seller…. So if you gather your own, you’ve added 15%.
I’ve crafted every profession to 400. I’ve made money crafting up all of them except Cooking, so IMO, none of them cost anything to craft up. You need to:
1. Buy raw materials, processed materials, or parts using offers, not direct buys, and be patient.
2. Make things that you can sell at a profit or the smallest loss. And sell with an order, not to someone’s offer.
3. Spend karma for the rare inscription/insignia recipes from the master craftsman, and make the profitable items
Most of your experience comes from discovery, so you want to minimize your costs per discovery. Certain parts are often less expensive than the processed materials they require to make, particularly parts that get made ‘to craft up’. Insignias and inscriptions are sometimes less expensive than their parts, too, so check those also.
If you want to craft up on the least amount of money, you will want to buy the insignia/inscription recipes from the master crafters. They will let you make rare (yellow) items, which are significantly better, and often profitable to make and sell.
Few tips:
Always buy materials and parts with an offer, unless the lowest sale price is very close to the highest offer. Takes patience, but you usually save a lot of money.
Compare buying parts with making them from materials. You give up a little xp, but can save a lot of money. I’ve even found parts selling so cheaply that I could vendor the item I made for a profit!
Check to see if the inscriptions/insignia are selling for less than they cost to make. This is true often enough that I always check (except for rare inscriptions/insignia, which are usually pretty high_.
If you are selling on the TP, generally don’t take the offers, put it up for sale. Setting the price right will take a bit of judgement and practice….
You haven’t seen the Gladiator armor, have you? I was wondering what I’d use transmutation stones for, too. Then I leveled a warrior up to gladiator armor level….
It very much depends. At almost all levels, there is some item you can make for a profit. They are usually rare items that require you to buy the inscription/insignia from the trainer for karma, but sometimes you can make components or greens and sell at a profit.
I find that the most profitable items are often a mixture of parts bought off the TP and ones I’ve made myself. Once I even found a green item I could vendor at a profit, because two parts were very cheap compared to mfg cost.
Save your fine mats (the teeth, scales, etc.) for making rare insignia and inscriptions. Those can even be sold at a decent profit sometimes, and you can usually make something for a profit that uses either the rare insignia or the rare inscription for a given material.
So… you can craft most materials profitably, but it takes research and watching the markets.
Herb Seedlings, Verdant Herbs, Young Herbs, and Herb Sprouts. Since the drop is random, they’re hard to get.
(edited by Daulnay.4971)
It’s just a shame you can’t get more cogs through other means (like from the presents in the world). Heck, they could have even put Mystical Cogs in packs of 250 on the Gem Store.
Now a lot of people will have 3 useless frames at the end of the event; unless the dungeon turns into a Daily Dungeon with 100 Mystical Cogs or something once Tixx is in LA.
The leftover frames can be turned into Endless Tonics for whatever the frame is, like Endless Plush Gryphon Tonics.
Whoever decided to limit everyone to 2 out of 5 minis clearly does not understand collecting and collectors at all.
On the contrary, they are depending on collectors wanting all the minipets, and being willing to buy gems in order to get the three they can’t otherwise get.
What it costs you to raise a craft depends entirely on how much you want to work at it. I generally make money raising a craft, not spend it. But I compare the costs to make components over buying them, look for bargains, and almost always buy materials and components using offers. I also figure the total cost to make things, and try to make the most profitable or least costly items. I also make items for sale as I level up — the yellow (rare) items that you make with karma-purchased inscription/insignia recipes can be profitable if you’re careful.
What you should depends on why you’re picking up crafting, and how much you want to save/make money as you level up.
A. You are crafting because you want to make a legendary weapon for your character. A common reason, and you probably don’t like crafting or figuring out where good markets are. Spend your cash, and get to 400 as fast as possible. Do discovery mode (it’s the most efficient), even though it takes more attention.
B. You are crafting because you like to make stuff for your characters and friends, but you don’t care about making money. In that case, keep your crafting level on par with your character level. If you don’t have a ton of money, use the money-saving techniques below so that you can buy what you need from the TP (since it’s very hard to gather everything you need to keep a craft level up to your character’s).
C. You’re taking crafting up so that you can make money at it. Some of the posts are pretty bitter about how impossible it is, but that’s because they’re expecting to not have to work hard to make money. Making a profit takes effort, and it is less time-efficient than farming stuff, at level 80. And as difficult, maybe more.
To make or save money, you need to buy at the lowest cost. Sounds trivial, but lots of people don’t, including most of the ones making leveling guides. The market is dynamic, so prices change. No guide will be able to keep up with the fluctuations. You have to do it by hand (and some of the price sites help, but still don’t keep up with the actual market). When you make an item:
— compare the cost of getting each component different ways
a. Making it from raw materials
b. Making it from processed materials
c. Buying it from the TP
And then buy it the least expensive way.
Check the cost of Insignias/Inscriptions/Gems as well. Sometimes they are available at well below mfg. cost.
— When you purchase from the TP, use orders rather than buying immediately, unless the prices between bid and asked are really close. Be patient, and wait for the order to get filled. You may have to cancel the order and raise your offer sometimes. If you’re planning on crafting to make money, you’ll have to get good at estimating how much to offer.
— When you craft for leveling, craft whatever you can sell for a profit. Seems obvious, but figuring out what’s profitable takes work and most people aren’t willing to do it. So I’ve (in the last couple weeks) been able to find green items I could make and sell to a vendor at a profit, components with a buy offer that I could fill at a profit, and (often true) rare items I could sell at a profit. And these opportunities were in the first two tiers of a craft.
If you want to raise your craft to 400 while making a profit, you can. You will have to buy the rare recipes from the master craftsman for karma (ex. cooking), as those rare items are most often the profitable ones. It will take time and effort, though. You have to watch markets, buy/make components at lowest cost, and judge your sale price carefully (to sell quickly, before others find the profitable opportunity).
Would you like to use them? If so: craft it, otherwise let it be. Since everybody can craft anything crafting is not a good possibility to make gold but only to fulfill your own needs.
You can make money crafting, you just have to be smart about it and buy your materials cheaply. That, and don’t make the things other people use to skill up.
At least, not available yet. Maybe they’ll get added?
GW2 has a competitive market economy, so any profitable situation should disappear fairly quickly. It’s possible to make money, but you have to make the effort to figure out where the profit is at the moment. In the past week or so, I have made money:
- making parts for sale to a buyer (first tier Huntsman).
- making green items for sale to a vendor (no kidding – horns)
- making rare (yellow) items
- making beaded items
Everyone thinks crafting means making your items from scratch, but you can often find parts for less than the cost of making them (if you use offers instead of buying immediately).
You won’t find it profitable to make blue or green items most of the time – that’s where most of the competition is. (Not always, tho. I thought I’d never make money vendoring crafted items, but I found some parts dumped for very cheap. You might too, if you look.)
You can make money at any craft, even as you level up. You can level up your craft enough to make yourself rare (yellow) armor that’s good for your level, too. Blue or green armor, weapons, and jewelry is better just bought, though.
Takes some effort and thought, but it’s possible in all the crafts, except possibly cooking. I’ve been able to make money crafting up in all the crafts, and have everything but cooking at 400.
For the time spent, it’s not as profitable as running level 80 dungeons or farming, but if you’re level 20, it’s great money.
That’s the TL;DR. If you want to know more, find my posts/replies on the subject.
For thief? Figure out what Legendary you might like, and train up the two crafts that it will require. Or go for two of Leatherworking, Weaponsmith, Huntsman, and Jewelcrafting so that you can supply some of your own rare equipment.
Before we get into more detail on making money, let’s look at some common complaints/solutions:
1. Crafting for xp ruins the crafting market. " Remove exp gain from crafting so people are crafting for the purpose of having access to the high end crafted gear."
ANet tries to balance XP/gold/time spent between PvP, PvE, and crafting. Taking XP off the reward side for crafting will increase the gold reward, but it will force PvE onto the people who want to mainly craft. That would be bad for the market success of the game.
2. Crafting is too easy, so there’s too much competition. “Make crafting more time consuming so people cant craft max gear after 1-2 hours of grinding the lower lvls.”
A big goal of the game design is to remove or lessen grinding. ANet abandon one of their big selling points? Won’t happen.
3. Crafting is too simple, and there’s no risk. “Add a fail chance to crafting where u can loose one of the components used for failing to craft said item.”
This will raise the cost of crafting items, overall, but won’t change the profitability in any appreciable way. (study the concept of expected value in probability theory if you don’t understand why).
4. Crafted items aren’t unique or special enough for players to want them. “Critical Crafting chance which gives the item 2 upgrade slots instead of one or some extra visual on the item (or for food multiple use for one item, extended time or better stats).”
This tends to introduce grinding; players generally don’t want to buy the non-critical items. Especially true in PvP games, where things like slots matter. An extra visual or alternate skin might be workable.
Now the details:
Use offers Buy your materials using offers. There is usually a 15% or more gap between the offer price and the sell price. If you pay the sell price, you’re losing a big chunk of your profit. Use offers, and have patience.
Compare costs Compare the costs of the raw materials, the processed materials, and the parts for your products. Figure out which combination of raw materials, processed materials, and parts is the least expensive… and watch the market for deals while you’re doing this. When you’re calculating costs, use a bit above the highest offer price. For high-volume markets, you can even use 1c above. I often make an items with some purchased parts, some processed materials, and even raw materials.
Find the dumped goods Figure out which parts are being mass-produced to level up. Those parts are usually for sale at a huge discount over their material costs. Never make those parts yourself!! Look not just at things made from common raw materials, but also the inscriptions, insignia, and filigreed gems. Some of them get dumped, too.
Look for anomalies Market prices that don’t make sense are often opportunities… just maybe not right where you are looking. If you see an anomaly, think about it. For instance, most parts are not profitable… but some are, almost. Those are the parts that are getting used, for making items that are sold for a profit.
Watch the markets for opportunity You’re in competition with every other crafter. The high-profit opportunities will disappear quickly when they do show up, so be ready to jump.
Look at the distribution of bids and offers The pattern of bids and offers for an item – how many goods are offered, at each price — can give you hints about the future direction of that item’s profitability. They will also tell you how active the market is, and therefore how likely it’ll be that you can sell your item profitably. Thin markets (few sales) are risky, but can have very high profit margins. Busy markets are safer, but there’s more competition so the profits are less.
Ideally, we would like to be able to make as much money crafting as you could farming dungeons, with as much effort. However, at present it’s more efficient to farm for money than to craft, at least if you’re level 80. So even though you can make money crafting, you’ll be doing it because you enjoy it, not just to make money.
Crafting actually works almost as well as it theoretically can. But, you say, crafting isn’t working! And you have company…
“crafting, in GW2, just isn’t a viable way to make money.”, " I love crafting but it does not pay.", “its well known that crafting the items you need as you level up is not possible.”, “Is crafting broken?”
You can make money crafting, even as you level up. You can craft way beyond your level, so that you can always craft your own armor. I make money crafting, and you could make money if you crafted the same way. You may not enjoy it , and it may be difficult for you to make money crafting the way you like… but you, or anyone, can make money. However, making money takes effort and time, it’s not the simple button pressing of basic crafting.
1. In economic theory, markets with good information are efficient. Opportunities to make more than a modest profit will be short-lived. That’s mainly true here — a given item will not remain profitable for very long. If you want to make decent money, you must watch markets, and make items when you see short supply and profit. The shortages will appear on the market tracking websites, and then the shortage disappears, along with profit. You have to price your item to sell before that happens, and try to take only a small loss when it does not sell in time. You also have to find the profitable situation before it appears on the tracking websites….
We expect this from an efficient market economy with good information — small or fleeting profits. Really profitable areas will disappear quickly. That’s just how a good market works. So, you can’t just buy materials, make whatever you want, and profit.
Markets are dynamic. You won’t make a good amount of gold unless you are willing to be nimble and constantly search for market opportunities. Opportunities are not going to wait for you to get off of work, or for you to sleep. Your competitors in the market are nimble, and are constantly watching the shifts in the market. If the competitive environment doesn’t suit you, then you shouldn’t expect to craft for money.
2. Parts of the GW2 market are not yet efficient. There are lots of places to save or make money while leveling up that are ignored. People leveling up may go for speed, and make batches of the least expensive thing. They dump the result on the market at a big loss, so those things (usually intermediate pieces that take one or two basic mats) are for sale far below manufacturing cost. This has persisted at most of the levels of the armor/weapons crafts [and even in cooking), so the market definitely isn’t all working smoothly. Finding the discounted materials and parts takes player time, just like finding the profitable items. For many players, it’s not worth the time — they’re interested in getting to 80, as fast as possible.
3. Have you noticed that, as you level up, there is often no market for fine and masterpiece items? A key raw material, the fine drop (bone, totem, etc), gets used to make rare items. The rare item market can be profitable, and it looks like demand from that market drives up fine drop prices. Like many profitable markets in the real world, there’s a barrier to entry — the recipes to make the rare part cost karma. In every tier except the first, many of the rare items can be made for a profit. (There are no rare items in the first tier).
“But this is not the crafting I was looking for! Too much playing the market!” What would you say to a player that wanted to compete in PvP without learning how to dodge, or without optimizing their build? If you want to compete, there are some things you have to do. If you want to make money in a market economy, you have to ‘play the market’ or ‘do finance’. Period. If you don’t, someone else will, they’ll undercut your prices, and you won’t make money. You have to look for cheap sources of raw materials or intermediate materials and you have to adapt to market conditions as they change. You have to avoid making items that are in oversupply, and make the ones that are not. That’s how people make profit in competitive markets.
— continued —
(edited by Daulnay.4971)
Crafting works, and it is possible to make ok gold at it (good gold if you are a low-level). Here’s an explanation of how the crafting economy works, and how to make money:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/crafting/How-can-crafting-be-made-profitable/672289
TL;DR – It’s a competitive market economy. There are ways to lower your costs, and when you do you can make a profit. Because it is a competitive market economy, the profitable areas will change, and rapidly. You have to adapt, work, and think.
That said, I recently started up Huntsman on a Ranger character, because I knew I’d want Huntsman 400 for the legendary. So far, I’m up to steel tier, and I made money on each tier. Not a whole lot on the green wood/bronze tier (16s), but I limited myself to a 50s grubstake, and was careful to not gather any materials.
That’s right, done entirely by buying on the TP, making stuff, and selling on the TP.
Answered many times, search is your friend: Cooking and Artificer. It’s even on the front page, down below.
You can level a craft to 400 on much less that a gold, if you’re willing to make the time and effort. It’s more time-efficient to farm gold in Orr, though. I have made an overall profit on all of the crafts I’ve done to 400, except cooking (which is my last, and harder to profit at). You can even make a profit on the first tier stuff, if you work at it.
At least, I did yesterday, leveling Huntsman from 0 to 86 on first tier stuff, made 14s profit. Hardly worth the several hours I put into it, of course, but it can be done, and I was doing it for fun.
Cheapest, in cash, is all of them except maybe cooking. But you have to trade time and effort.
(edited by Daulnay.4971)
If you’re really ambitious and willing to spend the time, you can even make money. For example, I started Huntsman yesterday with 50 silver, and leveled to 86 without farming a thing. When I was done, I had 64 silver. Some from buying raw materials and making parts, (horn) some from buying parts and selling items on the TP (mostly bows and pistols), and some from buying parts and selling the resulting green item to the vendor (yes, I made money crafting and selling greens to the vendor, about 20% profit).
P.S. The profit on crafting greens is still there, but disappearing. All profitable opportunities are ephemeral in this market, it’s fairly efficient.
In general, farming or buying the materials wastes money. If you use offers, many of the things you need can be bought on the TP for less than the cost of the materials to make them. This is especially true of the parts that people make to level up while avoiding fine drop materials (blood, bone, and other ‘ooky bits’).
For example, you can buy a green staff head for 78% of what the wood planks cost, a staff shaft for 87%, and a malign green inscription for 5c, way below cost. You can get a green focus casing for less than half the cost of the wood planks, and a green scepter core for 60% of the cost. (Yes, you’ll have to make some parts. )
While the savings are not always this good at higher levels, I’ve been able to buy some parts at a significant discount for every craft, even cooking. However, you always have to buy using an offer, and have patience. Sometimes they will take an hour or even overnight to fill.
(edited by Daulnay.4971)
To answer some of the questions: I have maxed a craft skill: cooking:
But i do not craft anything to sell, because selling the matts required would give me more profit than the actual selling price of the finished product.
By the time it takes to fight mobs every step of the way gathering… i’ve already made more money than i could hope for in the finished product. <snip>
So basically, crafting in this game is not even as good as “old school” crafting.
Just yesterday, I started huntsman on one of my characters, with an eye towards getting a legendary. My experience has been that you could make money crafting, without doing any gathering, so I though I would put it to the test. I gave my character 50 silver, a jug of karma, and lots of bag space. No gathered materials at all. The karma is reserved for buying the rare recipes from master trainers.
So far, I’ve gotten through the least profitable part, the bronze tier. My character has 64 silver, so I’ve managed to make a small profit, just on ordinary blue and green stuff, and parts. Anyone else, yesterday, could have done the same.
Yes, it takes some effort. You have to compare prices, and choose between buying raw materials, refined materials, and components. With the finished product, you have to choose between selling on the TP, to the vendor, or salvaging. Sometimes, you have to wait for your offers to be filled. Or for a lower-priced item so sell, before yours does. You sometimes have to reprice offers to buy or (taking the 5% loss) sell.
Yesterday, I made money by manufacturing one part, by making and selling blue and green weapons entirely from bought parts, and gasp selling green items to the vendor (no kidding!). Yes, I was actually able to turn a profit vendoring green items. Between all those, I went from 0 to over 75 (86, actually).
Is it worth it? Compared to the alternative of farming in Orr, definitely not. Once I can make rare items (at craft level 125), it will get more worthwhile, though still not as profitable as Orr farming. But if you enjoy figuring out the puzzle of where you can make a profit, it’s good fun. I personally get satisfaction from beating the system. If you don’t, and you just want to button-mash and Make Money Fast, then crafting isn’t for you.
File it with those jumping puzzles, look elsewhere for your fun, and leave crafting to those of us who enjoy the effort.
P.S. I agree that it would be better if we could look closely at others’ armor, at least in cities, and if there were a maker’s mark or at least initials and guild. It would also be nice if we could customize the dyes on armor we make, and sell dyed armor.
The answer to “can I make money crafting with X skill” is no.
More specifically: it’s possible, but it requires so much time and effort playing the trading post that most will recommend simply farming as it is much easier and likely more profitable (and there is no risk, as opposed to playing the TP).
It requires effort, judgement, patience, and speed. You can, if you are skilled, make money reliably. As much money as grinding in Orr? Probably not. But good money if you are not level 80 yet. Think of it as a kind of economic PvP, and you’ll have a good sense of what it takes to make money.
In Horizons (now Istaria), crafters can not only make the usual weapons, potions, and food, but also spells and buildings. During some events, even portals or bridges. The crafts allows you to tailor your weapons, armor and jewelry much like this system, except that at the higher levels, you choose not one but three ways to tailor, giving a much wider of variety. The spell customizing shines, though; you can add range, accuracy, damage, crit damage, or some special effect depending on the school of spell (e.g. stun, slow, dot, etc).
I doubt you’ll see anything like it here, since it’d be hell to balance for PvP.
Here’s the problem: player effectiveness improves with better attributes, through boosts from trait choices and equipment choices. Half of Rangers’ effectiveness comes from our pets. If I understand correctly, only our personal effectiveness gets boosted by our trait and equipment choices. Our pet’s effectiveness is unchanged, and it’s half our overall effectiveness.
Another issue is whether or not food/potion boosts also affect our pets. Anyone know the answer? I suspect not….
So, a 10% boost to ranger attributes would give half the boost in effectiveness that a 10% boost would give to other classes.
I hope that I am mistaken in how attribute boosts work for Rangers….
Edit: Checked. Armor, weapons, jewelry, Trait boosts, food, and potions do not affect the pets stats. Color me sad, and weak.
(edited by Daulnay.4971)
1. Let some of our trait customization affect our pet traits as well.
2. Let us swap between 3 pets rather than 2.
3. Let pets ‘track’ targets in PvP after the target stealths/runs out of range.
Ranger pets’ attributes only reflect our levels, not our own character attributes. At the same time, pets are supposed to provide half our damage. So, unlike other classes, our customization of attributes through traits (except Beastmastery) and equipment doesn’t change half our damage potential at all. (Excluding certain chosen traits.)
Our customizations only improve half of the ranger/pet pair. Other classes’ customizations improve the whole package. It seems Rangers get short-changed. (Or do I misunderstand how ranger pets work?)
Can we get this fixed? At least make some of the trait customization affect our pets too.
There is one that will turn you into a random ruminant.
Crafting can be profitable, but not in general. As an industry, it is unsustainable except for the fact that new people come along to dump their money into it to level up (the equivalent of having an infinite stream of venture capital).
While there are some good arguments, I think you’re too pessimistic about the source of crafting profit. It’s not like having an infinite stream of venture capital, it’s like having an infinite stream of teenage customers. Venture capital is notorious for drying up, which makes it an inaccurate metaphor.
If the stream of new customers dies, this game will also die. As long as there’s a stream of new customers, there will be some demand for crafted goods, and the potential for profit. The main source of profit right now comes from rare items that people buy for their alts or mains. These are inefficient to level up on, and are also the best items, so the demand is high and supply is low.
The only way this changes is if something drives the cost of components crazy, like being able to transmute them into materials for legendaries.
Actually, crafting has been profitable. But it’s not easy or straightforward, because GW2 has (mostly) an efficient market economy. Here’s the explanation:
http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/crafting/How-can-crafting-be-made-profitable/first#post672289
TL,DR – you’re in competition with all the other players (competitive free market, right?), so you have to out-compete them to make a profit. If you enjoy that, great! If it’s not your favorite thing, enjoy a different part of the game and leave the competitive free market stuff to the players who enjoy it.
Crafting is actually profitable. If you want to understand how it works, check this post:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/crafting/How-can-crafting-be-made-profitable/672289
or the entire thread :
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/crafting/How-can-crafting-be-made-profitable/first
You are not going to be able to constantly make the same thing at a good profit. GW2 has decently functioning competitive market economy, and that’s just the way markets work (basic economic theory).
If you TP your whites, blues and greens, make sure to compare the vendor price to the TP price, and subtract 15% TP fees from the TP sell price. Much of the time, people just TP it for bag space and lose 15% because the TP price is a penny over the vendor price.
I’ve leveled all 3 weapon crafts and all 3 armor crafts to 400, making money with all 6. It’s not simple and straightforward, so you may want to farm money and instead buy your way up. I like figuring out profit/loss and watching markets, so it was fun for me.
Here’s how:
1. Craft up to the next rare recipe level, at lowest cost.
2. Buy rare recipes with karma
3. Figure out the break-even costs for each rare recipe. You will have to estimate your materials costs.
4. Watch the markets, looking for profitable situations, and make a couple of those items to sell. Price carefully.
Remember, you are in economic competition with every other player who’s crafting up or trying to make profits. You won’t profit if you don’t work as hard as the competition!. This is (most of the time) an efficient market, so anything profitable will get made until the demand is met and profit disappears (basic economics). You will have to be nimble to make money.
General tips:
- buy your materials off the TP. Use offers when doing so, just buying at the asking prices makes you non-competitive. Put up an offer, and be patient. It may take a while to fill for rarely-offered items. And remember, cancelling and re-pricing an offer costs you nothing! So adjust your offers as the market changes.
– buy the intermediate pieces rather than making them, when you can buy them for less than what it would cost you to manufacture them. Use the offer prices to figure this out, not selling prices.
- Remember to allow for the 15% TP taxes when figuring out profitability. You have to price 15% over your materials costs to actually make any money.
- Don’t watch prices on internet sites outside the game. They are updated somewhat slowly, and are watched by most of your competition. You need to hop in the market and sell before they realize there’s a profit to be made, so you need to directly watch the markets.
Some of the players like doing this kind of thing. This part of the game is for us. If it’s not your thing, leave it alone. Not everyone likes jumping puzzles, but they’re there for the part of the gaming citizenry that does.
(edited by Daulnay.4971)
Ignore certain parts of the crafting guides. Many people want to craft up in a hurry, so they get a pile of ore and then craft basic parts. Then, they put those parts on the TP, at a big monetary loss. The crafting guides have you acquiring ore and making the parts.
You can generally buy all the basic jewelery parts for much less than it would cost to buy the ore and make them yourself. Save your ores for the parts that are not dumped, mainly the ring and necklace parts. Buy the cheapest stones, and make an earring and ring. with each. Sell to the vendor. Make filigreed gems, and save them for the next part. If you can get them from the TP at less than it costs to buy a filigree and gem, buy one more.
Always buy your ingredients with offers, unless the sale price is only one copper or so above the lowest offer. It takes more patience, but the savings are substantial.
Buy some of the rare recipes from the master craftsman, for karma. The jewelry you make from these recipes sometimes sell at a profit, so you can actually end with more money than you had at the start, if you choose what you make carefully.
1 2