Crafting: what to level, what it costs, and who needs it at all

Crafting in Guild Wars 2 is not an income stream. Or rather it is, but not the one beginners expect: most items are cheaper to buy than to make, and the prices show it plainly.

So let us work out when it earns its place.

How it works

Nine disciplines: Armorsmith, Artificer, Chef, Huntsman, Jeweler, Leatherworker, Scribe, Tailor, Weaponsmith. Plus the newer Handiworker.

The cap is 500. Exceptions: Jeweler and Scribe stop at 400.

Two active at a time. Expandable to four with an Additional Crafting License from the gem store.

Swapping costs money. Returning to a discipline you levelled before runs 10 copper per level already attained, which makes a return to a maxed 500 cost 50 silver. Survivable, but not free, so hopping back and forth daily is a bad habit.

Roughly every 75 levels a new tier of recipes opens up.

What it costs to level

Plainly: expensive for a new player. Taking one discipline to 500 runs into tens of gold of materials, and most of it gets bought rather than gathered, since your own stash will not cover it.

Hence the rule: do not level crafting “just in case”. Work out why you want it first.

When crafting is the right call

1. Ascended gear. The main reason. Items at that tier barely drop, and the most predictable route to them is making your own. If you are aiming at fractals or serious endgame, one or two disciplines matching your armour weight and weapon will pay for themselves.

2. Legendaries. A long story, and crafting sits on the road.

3. Cooking as cheap experience. Chef levels noticeably cheaper than the others, while crafting pays the same character experience. A known way to gain a few levels if the materials are already sitting in storage.

4. A specific item nobody is selling. Sometimes you want exactly that stat combination and nobody has listed one.

When it is not

To make money from crafting. In most cases the materials cost more than the finished item on the Trading Post. The reason is structural: thousands of players level crafting and dump the output on the market while buying the inputs. Demand sits on materials, not on results.

To gear up before 80. Equipment on the way is disposable, and making it yourself means spending gold on something eight levels will retire.

Price it before you make it

The habit that saves the most: before crafting anything, check what it sells for finished. Add up the materials at buy-order prices, compare against the sell listing of the result, and remember the 15% cut if you planned to sell (how that arithmetic works).

Below are current prices for the materials that show up most in high-tier recipes. Live numbers, updated on their own.

Look at Glob of Ectoplasm and Mystic Coin in particular. Those two are less materials than currency at the top end of the market. A lot of the game is priced in them, and their movement is a decent read on the economy as a whole.

An order that works

1. Level nothing for the first few weeks. Deposit materials (Deposit All Materials) and leave them alone.
2. Get to 80 and work out what you want to do: fractals, raids, open world, PvP.
3. Then pick one discipline matching your armour or weapon, and take it to 500 on purpose.
4. Chef separately, if you want cheap character levels.

Do not try to close all nine. That instinct comes from other games, and here it costs hundreds of gold for no practical return.