Crafting in GW2 and Gear/weapons

[Splat.7981]

Hello everyone.

I was wondering if crafting is really worth to get into in this game not only for myself for my character(s) but also to make some profit using the auction house/market?
In other mmorpg's the market is very important in the sense that player can use as another way to generate income, harvest basic resources for example like ore and selling them for gold or whatever currency the game uses. Is that a thing in GW2 or crafting is pointless?

On a side note, about gear and weapons i noticed that GW2 is heavy focused on the in game cash shop with all sorts of things but with skins for both you gear and weapons, I am not against that but normally in games that do this most of the gear or weapons for your class that drop by playing the game, from a boss, dungeons etc look like trash compared to the ones in the store.
Is i that way in GW2 or there's also cool stuff from gear and weapons or even appearances that drop from mobs and so on? 

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

You can use the Wiki to peruse the plethora of galleries to see all the items dropped in-game.

Examples:  https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gallery_of_swords  https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Asura_male_heavy_armor

There are some profitable crafted items;  you can crafted Ascended items for your characters.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Crafting

 

[Luthan.5236]

I don't really think that it's worth it - for making money. My personal opinion though. I know some guides suggest certain things. But doing that research ... and then the crafting - I'd find it more fun to farm directly ... doing some fractals or map meta events maybe.

The main interesting point is to get the achievements (for leveling the crafting professions to 500) and being able to craft some account bound stuff. The stuff that you can't unlock in any other way ... is rare though. Since most crafted stuff can be sold.

The market seems to react in a way that the finished products almost make no profit (some even a loss) - when slowly the worth of the base resources + trading post fees get calculated into some prices of the crafted products and they move into a stable price range (with lot profit - if the profit is higher a lot more people will flood the market and undercut until it get worth less). Especially for all the old stuff in the game and when other options exist (better gear from other sources).

What you might want to look for - what (afaik) guides also recommend: The time-gated stuff. You have certain items you can only craft once per day. They are usually account bound. But they refine into another material that you can sell (that is used for ascended crafting maybe). There a profit can be possible cause the time-gate factor is in the price calculated as well - people willing to pay more than the base resources are worth because of that.

[Danikat.8537]

59 minutes ago, Splat.7981 said:

I was wondering if crafting is really worth to get into in this game not only for myself for my character(s) but also to make some profit using the auction house/market?
In other mmorpg's the market is very important in the sense that player can use as another way to generate income, harvest basic resources for example like ore and selling them for gold or whatever currency the game uses. Is that a thing in GW2 or crafting is pointless?

Crafting is definitely useful, and it can be profitable as well but it's not as simple as in some other games. Levelling crafting is relatively easy and low commitment and many useful items are account bound on acquire (like ascended equipment) so most players will have some (often all) crafts levelled, which means there's not much demand for a lot of crafted items because anyone who wants them can make it themselves. Refined materials are worth more than the basic ones, but often not by much so if you're buying them to refine you need to factor in the TP fees to make sure it's worth doing.

Time-gated materials and items like Deldrimor Steel, Elonian Leather or Grow Lamps are profitable because many people don't want to wait to craft them when they realise they need them, but they're time-gated so you can't make a big profit quickly, but if you're looking for something to do regularly they're good choices. There's various other items too, but it tends to fluctuate over time so you can't just commit to crafting a specific thing, or type of thing, you'll need to change it every so often to follow demand.

If you're willing to go for a long-term project with a lot of non-crafting parts making and selling legendary weapons is always profitable (check if it's worth crafting the precursor, for many of the generation 1 legendaries it's not).
 

40 minutes ago, Splat.7981 said:

On a side note, about gear and weapons i noticed that GW2 is heavy focused on the in game cash shop with all sorts of things but with skins for both you gear and weapons, I am not against that but normally in games that do this most of the gear or weapons for your class that drop by playing the game, from a boss, dungeons etc look like trash compared to the ones in the store.

Is i that way in GW2 or there's also cool stuff from gear and weapons or even appearances that drop from mobs and so on? 

Yes there are weapon and armour skins in the gem store, and yes many people think many of them look cool. But no, that's not the only source of cool ones. The important thing is that most of them are not random drops, they're purchased from NPC merchants using the various currencies, obtained from collections and other achievements, crafted etc.

Here's a gallery of all the full sets of heavy armour: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Human_female_heavy_armor There's 88 in total. 11 of them come from the gem store and 6 are random drops. The rest come from specific places. 9 have to be crafted (or bought from someone who crafted them), 8 are purchased with Tales of Dungeon Delving, which you get by completing dungeons, each expansion has a few which you can only get there etc.

[SlayerXX.7138]

2 hours ago, Splat.7981 said:

I was wondering if crafting is really worth to get into in this game not only for myself for my character(s) but also to make some profit using the auction house/market?
In other mmorpg's the market is very important in the sense that player can use as another way to generate income, harvest basic resources for example like ore and selling them for gold or whatever currency the game uses. Is that a thing in GW2 or crafting is pointless?

It is worth in the sense it is easy to level and useful. You can get the best Armor and weapons by crafting alone. With a guide you can max a discipline quickly for under 50g. GW 2 is online for a decent time so profit margin are pretty slim on crafting. Even stuff that is time gated has slim margins thank to GW 2 being old. If you want to craft gold one of the most important cooldown is Quatz you can transform 25 at a Heropoint to 1 charged quartz once a day, without even having crafting. The market is more or less saturated, so profit mostly comes from bulk crafts of things People need with slim margins so People rather buy it, then crafting it themselves. People had 10 years to optimize. That is a knowledge cap you probably need to overcome to make real gold with crafting. Crafting is good, just not a money printing machine.

2 hours ago, Splat.7981 said:

On a side note, about gear and weapons i noticed that GW2 is heavy focused on the in game cash shop with all sorts of things but with skins for both you gear and weapons, I am not against that but normally in games that do this most of the gear or weapons for your class that drop by playing the game, from a boss, dungeons etc look like trash compared to the ones in the store.
Is i that way in GW2 or there's also cool stuff from gear and weapons or even appearances that drop from mobs and so on? 

There is a lot of skins in the game. Achievements, "hidden" mystic forge recipes, crafting(!), instanced PvE content and so on and on. The visual most powerful armor is actually in raids, that armor is pretty involved with transformation on entering combat. So powerful(costly) they won't make something similar again. Legendary weapons come with involved looking skins. My favorite Pistol skin comes from a festival: Hardlight Pistol. Even has a unique sound effect. Depending on your taste of course you can may end up in a Situation, where you want to drop gems on something you like, but there isn't an gigantic jump in quality. For example there is a limited number of staff skin that look like scythes. I had In game skin then "upgraded" to Gem store skin. Some really old in game skins may lack a pixel or two:).
 

[Cuks.8241]

Best gear in the game require crafting (legendary) lots of it and crafting ascended is a reliable option. 

You can make a ton of gold with crafting. But its not as straighforward. Easy to craft stuff and basic refinement is not really profitable. But you can reach crazy margins with some time gated stuff and most of all crafting gen 1 or 3 legendary weapons and selling them. Were talking several hundred, even close to 1k gold profit per weapon. 

Materials are the lifeblood of gw2 economy. Gw2 has one of the best economics ever. There is barely any inflation because gold drops are sparse and gold sinks are well balanced. Its all about trading materials. 

[Harfang.1507]

41 minutes ago, Cuks.8241 said:

Materials are the lifeblood of gw2 economy.

That. Crafting is useful, even needed for high-end stuff, and can prove quite profitable. But it requires a significant upfront investment to make work and research and time to wring money out of it.

[Irastira.8643]

If you plan is to use crafting to gain gold, There are a few exceptions, but you're going to be very disappointed.  Outside particular statlines like Celestial, Berserker, and Viper stats, I None of them really tend to sell.

You could do things like make Ascended components like Deldrimor, but that can take several days and generally isn't worth the effort put into it.  I have made a decent chunk of gold making Pearl Berserker Axes, and even that is only 4 Gold.

I somtimes sell Ascended insignea's on the TP.  (Berserkers and Assassins) These go for betwen 20 and 25 Gold each, but it takes 3 days to make one.

If you really want to make gold, I recommend looking up Youtube videos on how to maximize your profit on GW2.

[DebraKadabra.5278]

With the market also being really soft on off-meta stats, you'd be better off gathering and selling mats as opposed to crafting.

[Lucy.3728]

On 7/16/2023 at 10:22 AM, Splat.7981 said:

In other mmorpg's the market is very important in the sense that player can use as another way to generate income, harvest basic resources for example like ore and selling them for gold or whatever currency the game uses. Is that a thing in GW2 or crafting is pointless?

In GW2, it's moot for these purposes. Especially when you consider the resources you invest to level a craft to the maximum and how long it takes to get that back out to make a profit.
My account is 10 years old and I still have a craft that is not 500 (leatherworker) because there is no need.

You use crafting mainly for items that are account-bound and can't be gotten any other way.

There are quite a few things that bring you profit, like level 10 bot cores or achievement-items to complete armor-/weapon collections, but you can only craft and sell small amounts because otherwise you ruin the market and the price drops even faster and you don't sell your items but still pay the list price (= you made a loss). The profit is often not worth the effort. When the level 10 bot cores still had a good value, they financed my legendary gear because I don't play game modes that can be called profitable and I don't start farming extra. Otherwise even that wouldn't have been necessary.

When collecting resources you should reduce yourself to the most expensive, so platinum, iron and orichalcum. The latter only makes sense if you have the pick that makes orichalcum from mithril when mining. Only then you can collect relevant quantities. But that one costs 800 gems, when on offer, and it takes a long, long time to get that spent investment back to actually make profit.

-

When I played Aion, collecting resources and crafting potions and scrolls was very profitable.

Edited July 22, 2023 by Lucy.3728