Cooking 500 guide?

[TheQuickFox.3826]

Is there a guide already for efficiently leveling the cooking profession to 500?gw2crafts.net does not have one yet.

[Ayrilana.1396]

Discover the cheapest recipes until around level 440. Refining ingredients can also work. At 440, do the collection. For the final 10 levels, craft the seeds.

[Tinker.6924]

@TheQuickFox.3826 said:Is there a guide already for efficiently leveling the cooking profession to 500?gw2crafts.net does not have one yet.The collection is only do-able once and @Ayrilana.1396 advice will work for your main (assuming he is your chef) but I personally wouldn't craft seed pouches; they require ascended mats and for me that's too expensive (for now). I would just craft any other recipe that still gives points that you find useful.

If for some crazy reason you wanted to redo this on an alt

1. Alt's do get the free garden in their home instance, at least if their chef skill is at 400. No idea about alt's below 400 skill or alts that don't have the cooking profession
2. If your alt raises his cooking skill to 425 he will get the mail and free chefs tasting plate recipe.
3. And alt's home instance will now have a cooking station. You may or may not need to craft a chef's tasting plate first. My alt crafted a chef tasting plate and then went to his home instance and I saw the Sous Chef was now there next to a cooking station. Its possible that the cooking station is automatic just by hitting 425.
4. Sorry no 50 freebie skill points for your alt. that was a 1 time thing.

The sous chef guy is I guess a permanent npc in your home instance but he still appears in the other places. Your home instance version does not sell the bloodstone food his vendor versions do. While he does not show a collection icon anymore to my main which completed the collection, he does still show it on my alt even though the collection cannot be redone. That may be a bug.

[Ayrilana.1396]

The ascended mats for the seeds can be obtained from crafting components from simply salvaging different tiered food with compost that you buy from the crafting vendor. You plant these and then the next day you can gather them and recoup nearly all of your costs for leveling crafting aside from heat stones.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

A couple of tips:

• If working on collection, do that, because you'll need to rediscover recipes for the 5 racial chefs. That should take you to r425. (If a second chef, plenty of old recipes to rediscover, including some meta or festival foods.)
• Refining your ascended detritus (bloodstone, empty frags, dragging knights). Available at 425. Can take you to r450 if you have enough.
• Simple Syrup: Sugar & Water (discovery). Available at r450. Can take you to ~480
• Exquisite Extract is close to free at r450. Also rich compost. Can help take you to ~480
• Finishing the collection also boosts your rank a bit, so you might not need to do anything else.

For secondary chefs, the discovery recipes are available on the wiki:https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chef/Master_recipesSort by rating and ignore the ones with a named recipe.

[windbliss.3158]

For food to extracts, I found that it's simple based on the general tier.

• 0-125: fine
• 125-250: masterwork
• 250-375: rare
• 375+: exotic

In my observations:

• The closer to the upper end, the more guaranteed you're going to get the quality (except for 0-100, where it's closer to base), it seems. Rating 350* foods often aways creates rare extracts; if you have Path of Fire and know how to make coffee, you can easily bulk up on exotic extracts. For fine extracts, bake bread.
• I had great luck getting rare extracts from super veggie pizzas, just right at the 1:1 part (as it's a 350-rating food)

But yes. The collection is only doable once. You'll be doing materials crafting if you're leveling an alt's cooking -- item boosters are a plus. :)

EDIT: I need more caffeine. I also did some observations and I borked the intiial review. Hopefully it's now fixed up a little.. nuances are still present.

[ruzicka.4783]

I've gotten my chef to level 495. Any good advice on the best/fastest/most efficient way to get those last 5 levels? I'm willing to spend some gold if needed.