Help a new guy with crafting!

[chaosbaker.1734]

Hey guys I have a few questions about crafting. First and most important, what crafting professions are good for a first character? I'm level 47 and haven't given much attention to crafting yet due to the confusion. Secondly, I have two crafting professions atm.. are you limited to a certain amount or can you do all of them at anytime? Thanks in advance :)

[Undershorts.2671]

Welcome! I hope you've enjoyed your first character to this point. As a long time player who occasionally crafts, I have 500 in weaponsmith/armorsmith/artificer and 400 in the other trades (except scribe). If you have questions beyond what I've been able to describe here, feel free to send me a message in game.

First, let me answer your second question. You can only have 2 professions active at a time to start (you can unlock more crafting slots through gems). As you level one of the crafting professions, it will maintain that level and amount of experience even if you deactivate that profession and switch to a different one. There is no cost to switch to a crafting profession that has never been leveled, but if it has already been leveled, there is a fee of 10 copper per level to switch back to it. You can read more about crafting on the wiki page (where I go for everything). https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Crafting

Overall, it might be more lucrative to sell materials to buy specific armor that benefits your class. In my opinion, I think crafting is only necessary if you want a slightly cheaper way to get a legendary precursor, if you enjoy making gear for your characters, or if you don't want to farm certain gameplay options to get ascended armor. However, ascended armor is cheaper to attain through those other methods when I last checked. So, in regards to your first question, it kind of depends on your play style. I would suggest chef, as food can be useful as you level, and artificer for potions. If you'd like to level up a crafting profession to help you get gear, focus on the armor class for your play style and your favored weapon type (I did this, because I like crafting, I played a guardian and leveled weaponsmith/armorsmith). Another option is to level a crafting profession to make ascended materials that can be sold on the trading post.

[DebraKadabra.5278]

There's licenses that you can buy in the gem store from time to time that can expand the amount of crafting professions one character can carry from 2 max to 4 max, but I wouldn't recommend that since you're a new player, you're level 47, and you have 4 other character slots to play with.

What I will recommend is for you to check, once you get ready to start crafting, is http://gw2crafts.net/. There's quick and regular crafting guides for all crafting professions except for scribe - scribe has no quick guide.

[Bunter.3795]

I have multiple accounts and level 500 crafting on every one including a max level scribe. Besides the guides that the others have mentioned I would offer the following advice.

I would recommend that you combine a weapon crafting profession (weaponsmith, huntsman, artificer) and an armor crafting profession (armorsmith, leatherworker, tailor) on your first character. By combing this way you make it so that when you get his character to higher levels, they can refine and crafts almost all materials in the game which can be important when you get to higher level crafting.

Depending on the class of your character you might want to make the choices based on the weapons you use though all the weapon professions have unique items only they can craft. Unless you are playing an ele, I would recommend weaponsmith and armorsmith as a good combination for a heavy armor character. Weaponsmith can be good for any character class but I would recommend combining that with the respective armor type your character can wear. This way when you get to level 80 and begin to work into higher levels of crafting, you can make the ascended armor for this character.

Certain classes pair better with certain professions.

The heavy armor classes (warrior, guardian and revenant) are best served by pairing armorsmith and weaponsmith. While they do use some weapons from the other profession they predominantly use weapons from the weaponsmith crafting profession.

The medium armor classes (thief, engineer, and ranger) are best paired with leatherworker. I would put weaponsmith with thief and huntsman with ranger or engineer.

The light armor classes (Mesmer, elementalist and necromancer) are best paired with tailor. I would put artificer with any of them but especially with elementalist. If you don't pair artificer I would go with weaponsmith over huntsman.

All these pairing are based on it being your first character and first crafting professions. As you develop future characters you can still use the list as a guide but I would avoid duplicates. You second character that shares the same armor type as a previous one should probably focus on chef and jeweler.

As a rule I would avoid scribe as it's mainly concerned with decorations for the guld halls and while it does have some things to offer besides decorations it does require you to have permissions to use those items. Most items crafted by a scribe are stored in the guild menu and not a personal item. It is not a cheap profession to level up and unless you have the guild permissions, it's not really worth it.

Hope this helps.

[Vaper.1469]

I've been in a similar situation. Currently only lvl 21 but have chosen Leatherworker and huntsman (I'm an engineer, so I was going for the stuff I use, rifles, medium armour). Not sure if I've made the right choice though as I'm finding that the stuff I'm crafting isn't as good as armour I'm receiving from normal questing. Am I just levelling crafting too slowly? Leather doesn't seem easy to come by.

[JSmooth.7654]

@Vaper.1469 said:I've been in a similar situation. Currently only lvl 21 but have chosen Leatherworker and huntsman (I'm an engineer, so I was going for the stuff I use, rifles, medium armour). Not sure if I've made the right choice though as I'm finding that the stuff I'm crafting isn't as good as armour I'm receiving from normal questing. Am I just levelling crafting too slowly? Leather doesn't seem easy to come by.

While leveling, gearing up your character through questing and drops should be adequate. Don't worry about needing to craft gear for your character until you reach level 80. Leveling up your professions gives experience towards your character level. So, it's beneficial to level up both at the same time. I would recommend researching some of the more optimal ways to level your professions. It's generally better to refine materials until they no longer give much experience; and then start discovering recipes. You generally want to avoid wasting materials on crafted items that give less crafting experience. Definitely find a crafting guide.

PS: You can supplement your crafting material supply by using Basic Salvage Kits to break down green and blue gear that you're not equipping.

[Taelac.7036]

Leather is somewhat more difficult to come by than the other base crafting materials. For a L21 character, your best bet to farm leather directly is to fight humanoid enemies at your level (think bandits, ogres, centaurs, etc.). They drop supply bags that will contain cloth and leather and sometimes things like butter and chocolate, which you can sell to buy more leather. If you're part of a guild, make sure to use the crafting enhancement from the Guild Tavern every time you craft, hit your guild hall nodes every day, and ask if anyone has either of the leather racks in their home instance that you can farm.

The guides are great for leveling fast, and they're often the cheapest initial layout on materials, but if you're willing to put in a little research time, most crafting professions have some items at most levels that can be crafted for a profit, which you can use to buy more materials. Something like gw2spidy.com can help you research what those things might be--there are a handful of such tools out there, so do a search for 'GW2 trading post tools' to try them out and find one you like. You can also salvage what you craft if it's not better than what you already have, which will give you a few of those materials back, often enough to make up a last level or two before opening the next tier.

[Witch of Doom.5739]

Hi new guy! I would pick a crafting discipline that makes the items you enjoy the most -- armor or weapons or jewelry. Over my main and my alts, I have all the crafting disciplines covered, except no interest in Scribe, and here are my thoughts.

Most useful -- Armorsmith, Leatherworker, Tailor, and Weaponsmith, Huntsman, Artificer. Most fun but not very useful -- Cooking. So-so -- Jeweler. Right now leather is expensive but ore and wood are not, so if you're strapped for gold or time, anything that uses leather might be harder for you to advance in.

[Vaper.1469]

@JSmooth.7654 said:

@Vaper.1469 said:I've been in a similar situation. Currently only lvl 21 but have chosen Leatherworker and huntsman (I'm an engineer, so I was going for the stuff I use, rifles, medium armour). Not sure if I've made the right choice though as I'm finding that the stuff I'm crafting isn't as good as armour I'm receiving from normal questing. Am I just levelling crafting too slowly? Leather doesn't seem easy to come by.

While leveling, gearing up your character through questing and drops should be adequate. Don't worry about needing to craft gear for your character until you reach level 80. Leveling up your professions gives experience towards your character level. So, it's beneficial to level up both at the same time. I would recommend researching some of the more optimal ways to level your professions. It's generally better to refine materials until they no longer give much experience; and then start discovering recipes. You generally want to avoid wasting materials on crafted items that give less crafting experience. Definitely find a crafting guide.

PS: You can supplement your crafting material supply by using Basic Salvage Kits to break down green and blue gear that you're not equipping.

Thanks. That helps a lot.