Crafting 101
What is Crafting?
Crafting is basically the act of turning one or more materials into other stuff through the use of crafting workstations in Guild Wars 2. You will be able to find lots of different definitions about this anywhere, so I shall not waste time here.
Why Craft?
- Unique skins. As Arenanet has stated, there will be various designs for max level 80 armor sets, and they will differ according to how you obtain them. Dungeon armor would have their unique look, and so would armor sets obtained by the exchange of Karma and Glory, or by Crafting. Therefore, some skins can only be obtained through high level crafting. At low levels, I'm not too sure whether there's any difference between loot armor and crafting armor visuals, and even if there is, the effect might be negligible. Anyway, we change armor too frequently at low levels to actually consider this, but for reference here's an example.
The set on the left was from a mob, while the set on the right was crafted
- Essential for making legendary weapons. Based on info we have about legendary weapons now, we have to reach max level in a couple of crafting disciplines in order to be able to craft key components within a legendary weapon recipe. These components cannot be traded.
- A source of income. It is common to find players craft to earn in game currency in most MMOs. With the special gear system in GW2, we can't be too sure of this as gear of similar stats are so easily obtainable everywhere. However, profiting is still very possible, as I was able to sell all of my crafted gear easily on the trading post at slightly above cost price.
-Be self-sufficient! Many crafts let you make essential items like extra bag space right from the very beginning. Turn "useless" materials into bags to hold more stuff or craft weapons that you need early in the game to start unlocking various weapon skills before leaping into the WvW fray. For those gear parts where you just can't seem to obtain from mobs, and you don't wish to buy that overpriced thing from the greedy idiots out there, just pop into town and craft one yourself.
- Character experience. As of BWE2, experience is awarded by gaining crafting levels. As described by a developer:
Quote:
Linsey Murdock:
The way leveling XP gain works in crafting is this: For leveling a discipline from 0-400, you will gain 10 levels along the way. By maxing out all 8 disciplines, you will gain 80 levels. That means you could dedicate a character to crafting, feed it all the mats you get on other characters and level it all the way to 80 without ever needing to kill a thing. As hardcore crafters, we think that is pretty cool.
You apparently do not have to be a hardcore crafter to benefit from this exp boost. Even turning "trash items" into useful weapons and stuff can bring you exp easily. Why not?
- A dump for some of the mats you get from mobs. I have seen many players simply leave the carcass alone once they see the word "jute" and that is really depressing. Why not take up one or two crafting professions and make use of at least a portion of the mats you obtain from regular adventuring and leveling? These raw materials are definitely not a waste of bag space. Furthermore, you can easily send these mats back to your bank storage from your bag anywhere in the world if you so need those slots while adventuring. If you do not wish to bother yourselves with the trading post to sell these mats every now and then, use them to your own benefit. Of course, you can always send them to me anytime if you can't stand the sight of them sitting around
- It's never too late to start! Some of you might not venture into crafting early and might only think about doing so when you are like level 60 or more. What do I do with those level 5 or 10 items that I make?!? Fret not, the newly introduced mystic forge can effectively turn these low level weapons into high level ones with a simple click. It has been reported that 4 blue lvl 5 greatswords gives a lvl 40 blue greatsword in return, and 4 level 20+ items churned out a lvl 50 one o.O (Information from the Tales of Tyria guys)With this put in place, you will never have to worry about having a ton of useless crap products in your bag anymore
- It's easy, cheap (erm…) and definitely not time-consuming! Read on to find out why
♥ Some General Info About Stuff Related to Crafting ♥
Gathering
Gathering can be done once you purchase the gathering tools that are sold by selected merchants. Equip the tools (they don't take up inventory space), and off you go, there is no need to learn gathering from NPCs or go through other hassles.
Each node spawns for YOU. Other players who have gathered from the node will see them disappear, or in the case for a tree, chopped in 2 and fall. However, you will still see them intact and will be able to gather from it as well. Gathering from a lumber node lets you chop at it for 3 times, gaining a small amount of exp each whack (exp scales according to level. If you are already level 15 and still gather from the most basic wood node, you gain less exp). You gain 3 pieces of raw mats in this process. This works the same way for copper ore nodes. For food nodes (onions, blueberries etc.) most of them makes you kneel down and after a few seconds, obtain 2 pieces of the mat.
There is a small chance per gather to obtain rarer mats. For example, while mining copper ore nodes I sometimes receive garnet pebbles in addition to the normal 3 ores loot.
Currently, these nodes exists in the World vs World maps as well, so it makes it even easier for players to gather crafting materials. It was reported that distribution of different tier nodes are structured (higher tier nodes require higher level harvesting tools to gather meaningful mats from them), with the top 1/3 of the map of Borderlands having tier 1 nodes, middle 1/3 with tier 2 and bottom 1/3 with tier 3 ones. For the Eternal Battlegrounds, the outer circle contains tier 4 nodes, inner circle tier 5 and tier 6 ones are scattered around minimally. By gathering from them as a group/guild every time you see one, it helps your purse significantly by the end of the day, or at least donate those mats to the guild and everyone gains!
Another type of crafting mat would be the mob mat. These are stuff like "Vial of Weak Blood" or "Tiny Scales" that drop from mobs you slay, and are significantly different from normal trophy items (no description, sell to vendor for 2c). These mats play an important part in your crafting experience as well, and you will find that most of the time, you have to buy them from other players. They are apparently not as easy to farm as normal mats. You have to either kill those mobs, or pray that the tiny sacks you get from them, which you can open up to receive random stuff, churns one out for you.
In my opinion, gathering is worth the effort and time. These raw mats bring you significantly more coin than the normal trophy items mobs drop. An average of about 10c per mat piece compared to trophies at 2c. At one point due to the massive increase in demand for jute pieces, unit price rose to around 30cIt doesn't take a large amount of time to gather, just a few seconds and you earn that potential 30c (more if you use them to craft, hopefully). The nodes are easily to locate as well, being shown clearly on the minimap (lumber nodes shown as a stack of 3 logs, food nodes as a green weed and ore nodes as… an ore) and are mostly not dangerous to access. The drawback is that these nodes are NOT abundant. In some areas, I could explore for over 10 minutes and not encounter any nodes at all. Therefore, my advice is to gather while you quest/explore/level. This way you kill 2 birds with a stone and you save the time of travelling from node to node doing nothing in a pure gathering trip.
There is also the obvious option of obtaining mats through other players, or through the trading post. If you are rich or play merchant, go ahead. But for most of us who focus on pve and pvp, we might not have that much of spare coin to spend on the sometimes crazy prices of crafting mats. Prices, as I have observed during beta weekends, tend to fluctuate a lot. Without observing the market, it's dangerous to spend on these mats. If you are really too lazy to gather them, or need the mats urgently, seek advice from other guildies. Try not to spend coin in the trading house if you only visit it once a week.
Crafting Materials Storage
A big concern of players who are reluctant to craft would be the huge variety of different materials to obtain vs their limited bag space. In GW2, there is an additional tab in your bank storage where all types of crafting materials, ranging from normal jute scraps to mob mats to gems and onions, can be stored in, separate from your normal default 30 slot storage in bank. On top of that, every player can easily send mats they have gathered out in the world back to this tab by simply right-clicking on the mat in their bag window. You can simply withdraw these mats when you feel like crafting, clean and simple. In bwe3, this convenience has been further upgraded, with the bank and collections tab integrated into the crafting station panels. Now, we no longer to make trips back and from the crafting stations to the bank. However, we will still need to make constant trips to the trading post should we end up buying mats there.
Bank tab integrated into the crafting stations!
The collections tab too!
The Products of Crafting
The specific categories of items each crafting profession can craft will be listed later. Crafted items are at least of blue rarity and power. At level 50 crafting, you will get your first access to green crafted gear. Items crafted at level 400 include orange and yellow rarities.
Speed
I am pleased to say that Arenanet introduced a magnificent feature in crafting to speed up the whole process by loads. Each subsequent item crafted in one go will have its craft speed increased by 2 times, up to a cap. Here's a clip showing my toon crafting a stack of jute scraps.
326 Jute Scraps to 163 Bolts of Jute in 1 minute
Remember the days where we had to click "Craft" and proceed to surf the web or watch videos due to the long wait? In Aion I could start crafting 100 jellies and go take a nap. In GW2, crafters will be relieved
Level Requirement
There is no level requirement to level a craft. You can even craft all the way to 400 by starting off with a level 1 character.
Account-Wide Sharing?
Sadly, no. Crafting professions' levels are strictly for that character only. If you create a new toon, you would have to start from 0 in all crafting professions
Vendors Carry Identical Goods Everywhere
In all the professions, crafting requires mats that you gather and hunt. Additionally, you will definitely need to use some of the mats sold by vendors. For example, tailors would need to buy spools of jute thread to craft almost everything, aside from the jute scraps and mob mats. Btw, crafting mats stack in stacks of 250. You start a new stack at 251.
Switching Between Professions
You can take up 2 professions at first. Just speak to the respective NPCs and it's done. If you have 2 professions and want to take up a new one, you have to drop one of your existing professions. If you are going to switch INTO a previously leveled profession, you need to pay a fee. The fee goes like this: every level of the craft that you will be switching INTO costs 10c upfront. Switching from level 8 Tailoring to level 10 Armorsmithing costs 1s and switching from level 40 Tailoring to level 5 Artificer costs 50c. Cost only depends on the level of the profession you will enter.
Switching between profession does not reset your craft levels! You can swap around as many time as you like, provided you have the cash, and you will still be having your level 75 Armorsmithing and 45 Artificer that you achieved before having them swapped out of your "active" 2 professions.
♥ Getting Started ♥
Location of Crafting NPCs
Crafting NPCs can be found in all major cities (eg Divinity's Reach) and some small villages in explorable areas.
To get started, simply talk to the crafting NPC!
They can be located by their unique icons on the maps.
Divinity's Reach
Black Citadel
Hoelbrak
The Grove
Rata Sum
Lion's Arch
Even while exploring out in the world, you can find these convenient stops to take a break from slaughtering and do some handiwork.
Queensdale
Plains of Ashford
Wayfarer Foothills
Caledon Forest
Metrica Province
A village Jewelcrafting station! Looks really different ^^
Crafting Materials
Prepare the crafting materials you need. You would most likely only know what to prepare after going to the workstations and have a look at some of the basic stuff you can craft at level 1. Some of the materials are from gathering, some are from mobs while others can be found on the vendors who offer you the professions.
Vendor of professions that use ores.
Crafting
Finally, it's time for the real deal. If you have all the right materials, this would be simply choose and click "Craft". However, to craft more sophisticated items, for example, gear pieces, you would be required to first craft other components of the recipe before you can craft that final product. For difficulty of level 1, the gear pieces you can craft are level 5 gear, labeled as "simple" beside the item name.
Recipes
Crafting level 5 gear shouldn't be the reason for us to start crafting. We all want the better gear and equipment we can get from all this hard work. To do that, we have to discover recipes. Recipes are discovered through the "Discovery" tab in the workstation window. By placing certain ingredients you carry in your bag into the slots available on your right, it tells you whether certain stuff can be used together to create new undiscovered items.
Discovering recipes = sense of achievement
As you might have noticed, not everything in your bag will be shown in this tab on your left. Only the mats that can be used in recipes of the particular profession will be displayed. By placing on item into a slot, it will tell you whether there are possibilities of recipes or not. If yes, add more mats to the other slots. It will also show the level requirement of your craft in order to discover certain combinations of mats as you go along, so simply reset when you see a level req of 100. When you finally see a blueish icon of an item, it means that all conditions are met. Simply click "Craft" and you will succeed in discovery, adding that recipe into your regular crafting tab. How the system helps us in simplifying the process is that after you add a mat into a slot, say, a jute scrap, other mats that will never appear in recipes along with jute scrap will be greyed-out. This way, we do not need to try each mat one by one to see if it works. Simply add on the mats that were not greyed-out to continue the discovery process.
Also, recipes can be obtained by the use of recipe scrolls. I'm not sure where we can get them from, but I managed to get my hands on a few of them through the trading post. By activating them, the recipe of the mentioned item will appear automatically in the workstation window the next time you access it. Recipes for professions you are not currently equipped with can be learnt as normal, but I do not think you will be able to learn the recipes of a profession that you have not learnt yet.
Recipe that i bought from the trading post for 10s >.-
♥ Brief Analysis of the Crafting Professions ♥
Weapon-crafting Professions
Weaponsmiths make axes, daggers, hammers, greatswords, maces, shields, sigils, spears and swords. This profession would be suitable for most classes, since weapons like daggers and items like sigils are commonly useable stuff.
Huntsmen make bows, harpoon guns, pistols, rifles, torches, warhorns and sigils. These are generally ranged weapons and in my opinion, are not as popular as the gear crafted by weaponsmiths. However, bows and pistols with desirable stats sell just as well, if not better than some of the melee weapons.
Artificers craft scepters, tridents, staves, foci, sigils and potions. I have not discovered any recipe of potions by myself during my time in the game and so have little idea of what they look like or how they function. These above items are mostly caster related stuff. As a few of my cooking mats appeared in the discovery window, I would assume that potions recipes include ingredients like carrots, lol.
As we can see, all weapon-crafting professions can craft sigils (sigils are enhancement upgrades for a weapon that we can attach it to. Different sigils give different effects. If in doubt, wiki). Each profession has access to a few unique sigils. For instance, only huntsmen can craft sigils of paralyzation, and only weaponsmiths can craft sigils of doom.
Weaponsmith
Huntsman
Artificer
Armor-crafting Professions
All 3 professions here, Tailoring, Armorsmithing and Leatherworking, enable you to craft storage bags of some sort. These storage medium can be attached at the inventory window's bag slots and increase the amount of loot you can carry around as you travel. They range from simple 8 slot bags (5 slot ones you see in merchants outside of town are trash. Don’t waste coin on those!) to crazily expensive 20 slot ones. Tailors make jute bags, Leatherworkers craft leather packs while Armorsmiths produce boxes. All 3 professions can craft the basic bag, which has no additional features, and also a form of invisible bag. Items in these invisible bags will never appear in a sell-to-vendor list and will not move when inventory is sorted. In addition, each profession can craft another special bag.
For Tailors, there's the craftsmen bag where crafting materials will automatically fill it up first before occupying spaces in another bag. For Leatherworkers, they can craft the oiled bag that fills with junk items first. Armorsmiths have access to padded equipment boxes, which as the name suggests, fills up with weapons and armor pieces first.
All 3 professions can craft runes as well, and likewise, each has its own unique craftable runes.
Armorsmith
Leatherworker
Tailor
The Other 2
Jewelers craft rings, amulets, earrings and gemstones. As I lacked the crafting materials for jewelry in BWE1, and wasn't able to discover recipes, I had a hard time leveling this profession by using copper ores ALONE. Lol, it used up about 400+ copper ores, which was priced at 15-20c each at that time, amounting to about 60s, just to get this lame shit to level 25I lost patience and stopped advancing. After discovering the recipes to some of the accessories on websites following the end of the beta event, I made it a point to try it out next time.
In BWE2 I succesfully progressed to level 60+ and thus have a better understanding of how Jewelcrafting works now
Jeweler
Cooking is the scary one. Being titled as an advance crafting profession, Arenanet claims that it would require much more time, coin and effort to really benefit from this profession. That is sadly true. In order to start crafting, I first had to buy EVERY food material I can find on the trading post, so that I do not miss out while discovering recipes. That took up like 30 slots of bag space and some coin. Not surprisingly, 30+ food materials isn't even half of what is available to this profession. Simply take a look at the number of different ingredients available in your bank storage, its more than the variety for all 7 other professions combined! Many of them are rare and I could not lay my hands on them this time round. Cooking is also the only profession which requires mats that are ONLY accessible via the exchange of Karma points.
Karma food vendors
Furthermore, some ingredients are actually the products of lower level recipes! So if you do not have that particular product in your bag when you are in the "Discovery" tab, you will not be able to discover the advanced recipe
Cook
I would not advise you to take up this profession when you first start out. It obviously requires a large capital and some passion in gathering all those ingredients in order to do well or to earn back the money spent. From what i observe, the food products do give some nice stats boosts (eg cinnamon apple gives 2% Magic Find for 30 minutes, while bowl of vegetable stock gives 10% Precision for 15 minutes) but are hard to sell currently. I believe the demand will grow in the future after players level up and notice these boosts available to them; but as of now, few were willing to spend on such consumables. It is also very difficult to discover the recipes on your own, since you have to hunt for close to all of the ingredients first before being at least a little efficient in the discovery process. On a side note, it is said that googling food items and obtaining their ingredients lists might help in the discovery of cooking recipes in GW2!!
As a start, the other 7 professions are all fine, but i would recommend trying the weapon-crafters first, since they allow you to make your own weapons to unlock weapon skills as soon as possible, before you guys go WvW all day and all nightArmor pieces are simply not worth crafting at low levels, mob-dropped ones will do just fine. If you need bags, simply pass the mats to a fellow guildie who happens to take up one of the armor-crafting professions. I'm sure they would be glad to help (I would be glad to help
♥ A Closer Look at Tailoring ♥
What Everyone Needs, More Storage
As I had levelled Tailoring quite alot, I shall now zoom into each of the smaller details of crafting by using Tailoring as an example. Firstly, who doesn’t want more storage space? The first reason I started crafting was to make all these bags, and GW2 makes it such an easy task to accomplish. For the most basic 8 slot bags, you only need 20 jute scraps. Collect them while you level, or just pop into the trading post to grab some and there you have it. 8 slot bags are cheap and easy to make, so please do not resort to spamming your bag slots with 5 slot trash bags, they deserve more than that
As for higher difficulty bags, they increase by capacity, from 10 slots all the way to 20 slots. However, their cost also goes up exponentially. These bigger bags require a "Rune of Holding" in addition to the basic cloth mat required. For 10 slot bags, you no longer use jute, but wool, which is logically more expensive. These runes of holding cost a substantial amount too, with the lowest grade version (used to make 10 slots) costing between 3 to 4 silver. Thus, a 10 slot bag costs about 10s to make, up from the 2-3s to make an 8 slot. For the largest bag, the rune itself costs 10g, which is quite high. 18 slots are much more accessible in price, showing that Arenanet really wants to classify some stuff as end game items.
Prices of various runes of holding
It has been mentioned that there are other gimmicky bags besides the normal ones. They require an additional mat, which you can find out yourself in a site I will provide at the end of the post. Those mats are not very expensive, so if you can make use of the extra feature provided by these special bags, go ahead and get a hold on them. They are meant to increase convenience in inventory management.
A 10 slot invisible bag
If you are not particularly rich, prefer to spend your time levelling or dungeoning or pvping, or would rather use that coin to buy siege weapons in WvW, just stick to 8 or 10 slot bags. If you do need those slots (8 x 4 + 20 = 52 slots are not enough for you), you can alternatively exchange those coin you would have to throw in to craft the higher tier ones into gems, and purchase extra bag and bank slots instead. Bag slots cost 400 gems each and depending on exchange rates, may cost less than the 16/18 slot bag. You start with 4 bag slots and can have up to a maximum of 7. If you do not need storage in your bag, then go for bank slots. They seem to be more expensive at 600 gems (around 36s) but each bank slot gives 30 storage slots. You start with 1 bank slot and can have up to 8.
Bags are in some way, a luxury item. One can simply clear more trash out during each visit to the vendor and save up lots of slots. Being able to deposit collectibles on the fly also gives us less excuse for having full bags while adventuring. Otherwise, make full use of the bank storage, including the crafting mats sections, where you can store all your mats without taking up any slots.
What We See, Gear
The most useful and attractive stuff we can craft would be the gear we equip. Be it armor, weapons, accessories and anything we put on our characters, we want to look good and feel strong in it. Let me first introduce the different difficulty levels in crafting. Difficulty increases by 25 increments. You start off with level 1, next mark to target would be 25, then 50, 75 and so on. Each mark would allow you to craft new stuff. Some are automatically introduced into your crafting list (eg basic bags, gear components that require higher tier mats), while others need to be discovered via the "Discovery" tab. Before you can craft a piece of gear, you have to first craft its 2 part components from bolts of jute cloth.
At the start, you would be given the recipes for making blue rarity cloth armor/boots/gloves/pants that require the 2 part components + 1 vial of weak blood (they are labelled as "simple" beside their names). This results in a level 5 gear, with bonus stats to power (it is observed that any recipe that uses vial of weak blood adds stats to power). However, we can't possibly stop at level 5 gear. To craft level 10 cloth armor, we will need to first discover their recipes. To do so, we have to craft insignias. These insignias are simply another intermediate mat made from bolts of jute cloth and one other mob mat. They are the factors that affect what bonus stats you will get on the armor crafted. For example, to craft a festering chest piece, I would need to first craft the festering insignia from cloth and a tiny venom sac (mob mat), its 2 part components then go ahead and discover that recipe. By doing so, we have successfully crafted a level 10 blue rarity chest piece that adds stats to condition damage. Once you have discovered a recipe, you can no longer craft them in the discovery tab, but can find them in your regular craft list. Here's a demo.
Crafting through the "Discovery" tab, new recipes!
The insignias available at difficulty level 1, I term them level 1 insigs. Level 2 (difficulty level 25) insigs can be crafted at difficulty level 25. They boast different stat boosts, like precision and require another set of different mob mats. These level 2 insigs can then be used to craft level 15 blue gear of difficulty level 25. As you gain level in Tailoring, you gain the ability to craft headpieces (level 25) and shoulder pads (level 50), which are automatically added into your craft list. If you think all these difficulty levels and armor levels are mind boggling, here's a simple summary from what I gathered.
For normal 4 piece armor parts (chest, leggings, gloves, boots):
Vial of weak blood + 2 part component = level 5 blue gear (simple), difficulty level 1
Level 1 insig + 2 part component = level 10 blue gear, difficulty level 1
Level 2 insig + 2 part component = level 15 blue gear, difficulty level 25
Level 3 insig + 2 part component = level 20 green gear (master), difficulty level 50
For headpieces:
Level 1 insig + 2 part component = level 15 blue gear, difficulty level 25
Level 2 insig + 2 part component = level 15 blue gear, difficulty level 25
Level 3 insig + 2 part component = level 20 green gear (master), difficulty level 50
For shoulder pads:
Level 1 insig + 2 part component = level 20 blue gear, difficulty level 50
Level 2 insig + 2 part component = level 20 blue gear, difficulty level 50
Level 3 insig + 2 part component = level 20 green gear (master), difficulty level 50
Master level gear basically makes the gear green rarity, meaning it boasts more stats boost than blue ones. Level 3 insigs are the main reasons for this green rarity, and they cost more cloth and mob mats to craft. They provide all the variety of stats you can add through level 1 and 2 insigs, and at a higher magnitude. It also marks the end of the crafting line that uses jute scraps.
Crafting through the "Discovery" tab, new recipes!
Past level 50 in Tailoring, we use wool scraps, and all armor components would be made by using these wool. Mob mats required for crafting level 4 insigs (difficulty level 75)would go up a tier as well, meaning instead of tiny venom sac, you now need to use small venom sac. However, do take note that gear crafted using level 4 insigs with the wool-made armor components are level 25 BLUE. Level 4 insigs are quite different from before. They offer bonuses to 2 stats instead of 1. The next difficulty level in which you can craft green gear again would be 125.
That would be about all I have to share about Tailoring, having experienced it only up till level 111. I believe other crafting professions work similarly to Tailoring, with weapon-crafting using inscriptions instead of insignias and some other minor differences. The next section would be on Jewelcrafting. It is slightly different from the 6 gear-crafting professions but is nowhere as convoluted as Cooking. Here we go!
♥ Discovering Jewelcrafting ♥
The Small but Significant Stat Boost
As I was confused by the ingredients for Jewelcrafting recipes during the previous beta weekend event (BWE1), I did not pursue further than 25 levels into it and ended up not obtaining any information about it. This time round, I had a better idea of how it works by researching beforehand and so worked my way up to about level 60 as a Jeweller. Not much and still not very experienced, but at least now I do know roughly how the whole profession works to produce those rings/earrings/amulets AND jewels that we will start to demand for come launch.
At first glance, these accessories do nothing but boost a stat or two by a seemingly small amount. A garnet stud, for example, adds +8 total to your power at level 10 requirement. But simply multiplying it by 4 brings it to a large +40 power just from accessories alone which I believe is huge for a level 10 toon (2 earrings and 2 rings). As of now, accessories are not highly sought after, maybe because not many see the need of it yet, since they would rather be exploring or killing stuff rather than shopping or finding out ways to boost the stats that they don't need at the lower levels. However, a trip to the Mists and taking a look at how much the PvP amulet alone affects your stats will likely make you want to seriously consider investing in these powerful ornaments.
How Gems and Accessories Crafting Work
Many of you might have harvested a malachite pebble or a close relative of it from a copper ore, or obtained one of those gems from killing an elemental. You would notice that these gems can be used to enchant an "item", which refers to any weapon, armor or accessory and give it a minor stat boost, something like +3 condition damage for amber pebble. These gems are the most basic ingredients for Jewelcrafting aside from the copper ores required as well. As of now, six of these basic gems exist, namely: Amber pebbles (+3 condition damage), Turquoise pebbles (+3 vitality), Garnet pebbles (+3 power), Tiger's Eye pebbles (+3 precision), Malachite pebbles (+3 toughness) and Pearls (+3 healing).
Crafting components for accessories include copper settings (an essential component for all types of accessories), hooks (for earrings), bands (rings), chains (amulets) and filigree (jewels). You may be confused between gems and jewels and they are really different stuff. Jewels are an upgraded form of gems, are still used to enchant stuff but can ONLY be used on accessories. Jewels are also ingredients for making Masterwork (green) accessories, so do not forget this step during crafting.
Each crafted accessory will have 2 parts of stats boost. For example, a garnet solitaire (ring), though having a total of +9 power boost, will instead have +6 +3 Power displayed. This is because by crafting that ring with the garnet gem, the ring created now already has the garnet gem enchanted on it, so +6 refers to the boost by the ring, while +3 is the boost from the gem. You can switch out that gem anytime to something else to change that minor boost, say we enchant this ring now with a level req 20 adorned malachite jewel (+4 toughness), the ring will now have a total stat boost of +6 power and +4 toughness, BUT still retain its initial level req of 10 to equip. Hence, we see that the accessory's level req will not be affected by the level of gem/jewel inserted.
How We Obtain the Better Stuff
As with Tailoring, difficulty increases by 25 increments and each stage allows you to craft new stuff. However, in Jewelcrafting, there are a lot less stuff you can craft when you are just starting out. Basically you could only turn copper ores into copper ingots and turn those ingots into either setting, band or hook. Also, the lowest level accessory you could craft was level 10, unlike armor pieces of level 5 in Tailoring.
Discovering recipes is possible below craft level 25, with garnet/turquoise/amber earrings and rings accessible. Recipes for these are simple, consisting of only copper setting + copper hook + gem for a level 10 stud and switch the hook for a band to make a ring. This can be summarized as shown below.
A level 10 basic earring!
For earrings:
Basic gem (amber/turquoise/garnet) + copper setting + copper hook = level 10 blue stud, difficulty level 1 (eg. Garnet Stud of Might, +5 +3 Power)
Basic gem (tiger's eye/malachite/pearl) + copper setting + copper hook = level 15 blue stud, difficulty level 25 (eg. Malachite Stud of Resilience, +6 +3 Toughness)
Adorned jewel (amber/turquoise/garnet/tiger's eye/malachite/pearl) + copper setting + copper hook = level 20 green stud (master), difficulty level 50 (eg. Turquoise Stud of Vitality (Master), +8 +4 Vitality)
For rings:
Basic gem (amber/turquoise/garnet) + copper setting + copper band = level 10 blue solitaire, difficulty level 1 (eg. Garnet Solitaire of Might, +6 +3 Power)
Basic gem (tiger's eye/malachite/pearl) + copper setting + copper band = level 15 blue solitaire, difficulty level 25 (eg. Malachite Solitaire of Resilience, +7 +3 Toughness)
Adorned jewel (amber/turquoise/garnet/tiger's eye/malachite/pearl) + copper setting + copper band = level 20 green solitaire (master), difficulty level 50 (eg. Amber Solitaire of Festering (Master), +10 +5 Condition Damage)
For amulets:
Adorned jewel (amber/turquoise/garnet/tiger's eye/malachite/pearl) + copper setting + copper chain = level 20 green amulet (master), difficulty level 50 (eg. Tiger's Eye Amulet (Master), +13 +4 Precision)
Generally, amulets give the most stat boost amongst items of equal level, followed by rings then earrings, mainly due to the amount of ingots required to craft them. Some stats like festering also end up getting better boosts (on earrings, +5 +4 condition damage compared to +5 +3 for vitality). Exact variations need to be confirmed before stating a trend here.
Once you reach crafting level 25, you have access to adorned jewels produced from the gems and a copper filigree. Of course, the stats boost from the jewel will be higher. As stated, you will need jewels to craft masterwork accessories. Normal gems will only bring you blue items.
Basic gem + copper filigree = adorned jewel, difficulty level 25(eg. Adorned Malachite Jewel, +4 Toughness)
While I am not too sure whether you will be able to gather higher level gems out in the open world (I assume you can through the higher tier ore/tree nodes), it seems possible to obtain higher tier gems through crafting. 2 basic gems can be combined with a pile of glittering dust to form a tier 2 gem (nuggets).
Basic gem 1 + basic gem 2 + pile of glittering dust = tier 2 gem, difficulty level 50 (eg. Pearl + Garnet + Dust = Spinel Nugget, +5 Healing +2 Power)
Note that they now possess 2 stats boost, one major and one minor, similar to armor crafting, where higher level stuff give more than one type of stat boost. These tier 2 gems, or nuggets can then be combined with silver filigree (in contrast to copper filigree) to produce intricate jewels to create tier 2 masterwork accessories. Nuggets can also be combined with another nugget with a pile of shimmering dust to form tier 3 gems (lumps), and lumps can then form exquisite jewels or tier 4 gems (shards) and so on…
How Can it Be So Straightforward?
Well, that's about all that I have found regarding Jewelcrafting with my limited progress into the craft. However, take note that as with other crafts, there are bound to be recipes that are abnormal and some materials that are only used for a specific recipe to make a unique item. For example, apart from the normal 6 basic gems, there's also a special gem (or rather, a coin) ingredient called doubloons that can enchant items to up magic find chance. Copper doubloons can be upgraded to silver then gold ones like other normal gems, and they can be combined with nuggets to produce lumps that have one of its stat boost as magic find bonus. I foresee more of such anomalies surfacing in the future so be open to new ideas and be creative when it comes to discovering recipes!
♥ Now, Go Craft! ♥
The End?
After working 7 hours on this post, I believe it's time to sign out. I hope this post helped in one way or another. If you still decide to shun crafting, it's perfectly fine, at least after reading this post, you would have a better idea of what crafting is all about and experience something you would miss through this secondary source. For those who would like to try out crafting, HURRAY!! It is my first time working on such a long post, with info gathered myself, so do provide feedback and comment on it! I would most probably be planning a way to help guildies craft what they need/want on a regular basis, before the game launches so stay tunedBefore I vanish, here's some last comments, and hope you have a nice day!
No Luck Factor!! Screw Off, Aion..
I was nearly shedding tears of joy when I first discovered how crafting in GW2 has no luck factor in it. It's 100% success! Well, the only proc that happens would be some extra crafting exp and maybe some mats returned, but that's not the point. No more praying for procs to happen in order for the gear to be useful and no more clicking "Craft" and look away hoping the mats don't poof and vanish into a cloud of fail black smoke. Ah the relief ♥
Reminder: Always Try to Discover New Stuff!
As with my first Jewelcrafting experience, getting to level 25 by copper ores alone was super inefficient. By simply discovering new items and recipes, you can level really fast in the craft! They usually bring 1 to 2 levels per discovery and be assured that the game places enough of these recipes throughout the crafting tiers to facilitate leveling solely by discovery. You just have to get your hands on those mats
Are You More Popular than Me?
Some crafting professions will definitely be more popular than others, much like how Humans always tend to be the most played race. In BWE1, tailoring and the professions which use copper ores (Armorsmithing, Weaponsmithing, Huntsmen, Jeweller) were quite popular, judging by the price difference in mats from mats like leather and wood. At one point, jute scraps went up to around 30c per piece, while wood stayed at around 4c. This should be taken into consideration as well when deciding which craft to take up. Do the math, use some logic and you should be fine.
Vial of Weak Blood
Certain mob mats like the infamous vial of weak blood happen to be VERY precious to crafters. As mentioned earlier, it is the mob mat required to craft insignias or inscriptions that boost the "power" stat, and we all know that all players drool when they see "+__ Power". They also happen to cost quite abit, maybe 50c, as compared to things like tiny venom sac at 4c. Therefore, please, NEVER leave these alone in corpses, unlooted. It's a sin. If it takes up too much bag space, mail them to me straight away
Which Craft is Suitable for Me?
It all depends on how you play your class, and how deep you want to venture into crafting. In GW2, professions can wield a large variety of weapons that span through 2 crafts (Necromancers use daggers as well as staves, Thieves use swords and pistols) so which profession to pick up really falls back on which weapons you will need. For armor-crafting professions, it's always good to have. But in order to make full use of it, you will have to commit. A low level Tailor would not be able to support your level 70 Elementalist anymore if it's left at craft level 50. If you plan to craft for purposes other than to provide for your own toon, choosing the right profession to invest in would take some research and market observation for info, but the market is still immature as of now.
As a general guideline for players who primarily want to focus on crafting your own gear, pick those that craft the items you will be using. If you are planning to focus on dagger/dagger Thief, grab Weaponsmithing right away. If you think you might use some pistols or shortbow, get Huntsman as a 2nd profession. Otherwise, simply go for Leatherworking for the access to crafted medium armor. All these stuff that each profession can craft can be found in the previous section of "A Brief Analysis of the Crafting Professions"
However, you need not worry too much about choosing a wrong profession. As mentioned, switching into a new profession is free. If you feel that a particular profession does not meet your needs, simply switch it out. Hope you have fun with crafting!
Useful Links
[Site] Super database of recipes, bookmark please
[Site] Wiki crafts page, with nothing useful as of now
[Article] My previous post about the trading post
[Tool] Luna-Atra Craft Tool
[Article] GW2 Junkies' Overview of the Cooking Profession
[Video] Beginner's Crafting Guide by Enigmius1
[Video] Intermediate Crafting Guide by Enigmius1
[Video] Guild Wars 2 Crafting Guide Part 3: Cooking by Enigmius1
♥ Changelog ♥
May 2, 2012 - Completion of guide!
May 3, 2012 - Added Which Craft is Suitable for Me? under ♥ Now, Go Craft! ♥ section.
May 15, 2012 - New screenshots of Lion's Arch map and karma food vendors from stress test 1.
Jun 13, 2012 -
Updated new exp gaining method for crafting.
New heading in Why Craft? section about mystic forge.
Added info about gathering nodes in WvW maps.
Added info about crafting materials storage tab in bank.
Amended section about character level requirement for crafting to properly reflect the freedom to craft from character level 1.
Included screenshots of crafting locations in explorable areas.
Included new screenshot of Jewelcrafting.
Included new section ♥ Discovering Jewelcrafting ♥
Jun 14, 2012 - Added Reminder: Always Try to Discover New Stuff! under ♥ Now, Go Craft! ♥section.
Jul 24, 2012 -
Made many changes to text throughout the entire post.
Added new screenshots taken from bwe3, including crafting locations in new Asura and Sylvari areas.
Changed font so that it is easier to read.
♥
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