Is it worth it to level crafting to 500

Hello, I just recently leveled my tailoring up to level 400 by following this guide http://gw2crafts.net/tailor_400.html It has levels 400 to 500 in another section so my question is, is it worth leveling to 500 when I'm already at 401 or am I high enough to craft the best armor in game?

You can craft exotic armor at level 400, but exotic isn't the "best" armor in the game. If you want to craft ascended armor, you have to have level 500 in the crafting discipline that makes the armor you'd use (tailor for light armor, leatherworker for medium, and armorsmith for heavy).

Its not worth but a must, 500 crafting will let u make ascended quality armors this can be considered the best quality in game atm due to their stats are equal to legendaries but they can't freely change stats. If u want to do high level fractals or raid or any endgame contents seriously then 500 is a must.

@Eros.6801 said:Its not worth but a must, 500 crafting will let u make ascended quality armors this can be considered the best quality in game atm due to their stats are equal to legendaries but they can't freely change stats. If u want to do high level fractals or raid or any endgame contents seriously then 500 is a must.

Although it certainly helps to craft your first set of ascended armor, it is not a must to play T4 fractals. And it's totally not necessary for raids.

If you have the cash, you can get enough Agony Resistance to play T4s without ascended armor. And there are examples of players who can do that. Let's say you are playing for a long time but never bothered with fractals or raids, so you have enough gold. Or it's your second account to farm fractal dailies and you can support it. With ascended trinkets and backpack you can have 10 slots, and you can put a +12 infusion in them to get 120AR. Tear of Alba gives another 10/15AR. That's good enough for most T4 fractals, better get a 2 handed ascended weapon as well for 2 more slots. I actually did that with my second account. I only crafted a staff and was able to play all T4s without a single piece of ascended armor. The idea was to get the armor as drops and not have to craft it. In reality though, it can take months to get all pieces as drops and I got impatient, so I maxed my leatherworker craft and made the armor myself. I could now split the expensive infusions for no fee and sell them, if I wanted to.

The stat difference between exotic and ascended armor is so small that you won't really notice, and others will certainly never ask you if you have ascended armor in T4s. Nika's Coat gives:+134 Power+96 Precision+96 Ferocity

Zojja's Guise:+141 Power+101 Precision+101 Ferocity

That's also the reason why it doesn't matter in raids. If you do significantly less dps, it's not because you are using exotic armor instead of ascended.

Getting the craft from 400 to 500 costs maybe 40 to 50 gold, depending if it's armorsmithing or tailor/leatherworker. Every piece you craft will be more expensive, so it's really not a big one-time expense (Zojja's Guise costs 66 gold to make). I would just go ahead and do it.

Depends on what you want. I've leveled mine to around 400 and stopped. More or less did it out of boredom and for the achievements. Almost all my gear is ascended from various quests and drops. Never crafted anything ascended.

To me, crafting is a huge gold sink, but again . . . that may be just me. I'd rather farm the gold and sell the materials so I can just buy what I want instead, but again . . . it depends on what you want.

That all said, if you want Legendaries . . . yes. But again . . . prepare yourself. It's not for the casual.

As others have mentioned it depends entirely on your access to Ascended gear from other sources, or if you’re ever going to craft Legendary Weapons.

As well as ascended armour there are some other items that need crafting levels over 400, but I think they're mainly for legendaries or ascended backpacks.

I've got all of mine up to 500 except Tailor and Weaponsmith which are about 450-470 (don't remember exactly) and I'm slowly working on increasing. I'd say it's certainly not essential but it's nice to have the option there if you need it. I made a real effort to level Leatherworker, because I wanted to make an ascended coat for my ranger (it was the skin I wanted, believe it or not, the stats were just a nice bonus) but it was quite expensive (and this was before leather was so expensive) and kind of slow because of the time-gated materials. Since then I've not really gone out of my way to level the others, it's just happened in the course of crafting things. If I'm making anything where the level requirement is 400+ I make sure to check which crafts can make it and if possible use one I need to level up.

But if you know you're going to want ascended armour then it's definitely worth doing. It is possible to get ascended gear as drops or from achievements, but crafting is by far the most reliable way.

My opinion, it is not about getting to 500 that is only the first part. Now you need recipes and mats. Nobody gives you the recipes for each ascended armor piece. You buy them for items you have to farm all over the world, dungeons, fractals etc. I've had leatherworking at 500 for four months and just managed to make a coat. Forget Legendaries, you need a ton of mats and you need to train the skill.

Unless you play very casually/occasionally, it's worth it. For someone like me, trying to outfit 30 toons with ascended gear, it's crucial. It also provides goals that can give direction to your lvl 80 game. Trying to get mats has lead me to regions I hadn't previously bothered to explore and provided daily goals that give me a reason to play.

Yes, because even outside of crafting ascended gear quite easily you can also sell all your ascended mat daily crafts.

If you aim to do Raids and Fractals, then yes.

Exotic is a little underpower if compared to ascended, and it also does not have infusion slots ( you won't be able to do fractals because of agony resistence ).

Here's a full socketed ascended buildhttp://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQFAFA-jFBXgAh6AeUCCs/o8rX9nAAHAnfeA48zP/8zPvmf+5nf+5nf+5nHA-w

And here's a full exotic buildhttp://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQFAFA-jlRDwAJUCCw83L1feu/QPlfg0BAA-w

You can check the differences in terms of stats ( zerk gear ie ).

However, i suggest you to start with ascended offsets avaible through laurels and ls.Then decide if armor and weapons are worth it.

@"Shirlias.8104" said:If you aim to do Raids and Fractals, then yes.

Exotic is a little underpower if compared to ascended, and it also does not have infusion slots ( you won't be able to do fractals because of agony resistence ).

Here's a full socketed ascended buildhttp://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQFAFA-jFBXgAh6AeUCCs/o8rX9nAAHAnfeA48zP/8zPvmf+5nf+5nf+5nHA-w

And here's a full exotic buildhttp://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQFAFA-jlRDwAJUCCw83L1feu/QPlfg0BAA-w

That is totally not a realistic scenario you are presenting. He'll not have any stat infusions for a looong time (if he ever wants them), so the differences in stats between exotics and ascended are much smaller (I gave an example with the chest piece above). Also, it's more realistic to compare a set of exotic armor/weapon + ascended trinkets with a full ascended set. I would even go as far as saying that since the OP is talking about armor crafting, it's possible that he already has ascended weapons or takes it for granted that you max your weapon craft (or do collections to get ascended weapons), but is wondering if the same goes for armor crafting. Also, if you set traits and get increased ferocity and other stats through them, the %-difference between exotic and ascended becomes smaller as well.

I modified the setup like that, comparing the final stats of a fully ascended thief with the stats of a thief that only has exotics armor and the rest ascended. And since we are talking about fractals and raids, I added food and nourishment.

Fully ascended: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQFAWn8MBVmiNOBGOB8PhFaCbLPNc2TzVwN4IULAMhiAA-jhRBAB4pD4hLAAlq/YmSwr2fU+BwDAgUARMGA-e

Exotic armor: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQFAWn8MBVmiNOBGOB8PhFaCTLAMhiAb5phzeauCuBHhA-jhRBwAmVCeT9H86AA8AAecBAuu/o8jUARMGA-e

The differences are so small, if you are not applying to join a hardcore raid guild, nobody should care.

• 0,7% more power
• 2,6% more armor
• 0,75% more precision => 1,2% more crit chance
• 1,4% more ferocity => 1,2% more critical damage

Seriously, without gear check, nobody will ever know you are in exotic armor and not ascended, and you certainly won't notice a difference either.

It's a realistic scenario in terms of progression.The soon he starts, the less the time before his own equipment completed.

• Offsets are for free ( backpack included ).
• Once you have an armor proficiency ( or weapon ) lvl 500, you just need to play the game and do your time gated crafts daily.
• Then you will be able to craft everything ( best thing to do is SW chest run + meta event, in order to gather ascended materials, and it won't take too long for a full armor + 2/3 weapons )

About the infusion, obviously it will pass some time before he would be able to buy em ( unless he specifically farm golds in a proper way instead of playing the game. Or use real cash obviously ), but that's the real difference between an exotic armor and an ascended ( agony resistence apart ).

@"XTX.4910" said:Hello, I just recently leveled my tailoring up to level 400 by following this guide http://gw2crafts.net/tailor_400.html It has levels 400 to 500 in another section so my question is, is it worth leveling to 500 when I'm already at 401 or am I high enough to craft the best armor in game?

I've read the other comments up to now and the stats comparisons some have posted etc. but ultimately, it's not so much even about stats as it is that you have your crafting maxed out. There are lot of things you can make other than ascended armor at 500 such as Bolts of Damask and other Ascended quality items that are tradeable. But most of all for me, is just knowing i have my crafting up to date.

I'm now working on my 10th Ascended armor for all 10 of my chars. I'ts not a matter of the extra stats, but knowing that my chars have the bis gear. I mean why not? it's a game and games have goals you can set yourself and i set one for myself that all my chars have the highest tier of gear. When it comes to weapons, my chars have had those long time ago and now I make things like Mithrilium and other high ascended items and make money of them by selling them on trading post. In the end it's up to you. it's not necessary but it's nice to have.

Imo, the only reason you need ascended crafting is if you are playing high level fractals. Exotic will do you fine everywhere else, at that point it's just e-peen points.

Like others have mentioned, the primary incentive to level your tailoring up to 500 is to be able to craft ascended armor.

However, you might want to consider getting your tailoring up to 450, as then you can craft the Spool of Silk Weaving Thread and the Spool of Thick Elonian Cord. These two items are materials used in ascended armor crafting, but are restricted to one craft per day per account.

Even if you have no intention of crafting ascended armor now, you may want to get up to 450 just so you can start making these items daily to start stockpiling them. A full set of ascended armor will take more than 20 of each to craft.

On a related question, what about leveling weapon crafting to 500? It is worth it or is it like armor crafting where the difference is not that much?

@DoctorOverlord.8620 said:On a related question, what about leveling weapon crafting to 500? It is worth it or is it like armor crafting where the difference is not that much?

Works the same way armorsmithing does, you need lvl500 in order to create ascended weapons. My advice in general is to max out your crafting professions, you will inevitably need them at some point. Except cooking, cooking is different.