Crafting in GW2

“People” say that crafting in GW2 is broken and pointless. I respectfully disagree and here's why.

I knew I would craft from the start in GW2. I have crafted in both of my previous MMOs and I enjoy it. I get real pleasure from working out how to level up and breakeven at the same time. Let's face it, you'll rarely profit at this stage in most games; it's all about minimising loss.

My first two crafts in GW2 were Tailor and Artificer (necromancer remember). I quickly found that it cost quite a lot to craft. In the early days raw mats were in high demand and the cost of things like copper and jute actually had some value. At the time leatherwork was extremely expensive because leather was relatively hard to come by. By contrast leather is currently effectively worthless. Also, when the game was first released the market was constantly flooded. With a cross server auction house system supply almost always exceeds demand. It's virtually impossible to find a niche.

They do exist, though. Before the advent of gw2spidy I inadvertently discovered that several rare scepters and staffs could yield a significant profit. This was mainly because the skins were pretty damn cool. Crafting rare items also provides a significant boost to crafting exp. And, let's face it, what else do you have to spend that karma on?

Recently, I noticed that high level rare jewellery commands a significant price and decided that might be a nice craft to do on an alt I don't have the time (or inclinaton) to grind up. So, I took the plunge.

Firstly, I have a huge supply of mats built up. I'm a bit of a hoarder. That's not necessarily a good thing. A lot of people still don't have the hang of crafting GW2 and over-produce a lot of base components and end up selling the surplus for a lot less than the materials cost. Luckily, gw2spidy exists and it's easy to check if the materials are worth more sold than crafted. Sometimes, for example, it might be better to sell all your ore and just buy the ingots. The market is funny like that.

So, there's 3 stages to each “level” of crafting. The first stage is crafting components and some very poor quality items, the next stage is a selection of Fine items, which, again, are generally worthless and the last stage is Masterwork.

It turns out that Masterwork jewelry is actually pretty sought after and yields a decent profit. So, if you use gw2spidy and plan right, you can just spend all of stage one making components you need (unless it's cheaper to buy them). Then you have to suck up the loss as you craft crap for the second stage (I dumped most of mine in the guild bank). Obviously, it depends on the craft but, hopefully, at stage three you'll make that money back.

If you still feel a bit short changed take a look at the Rare quality items. Spending a bit of karma could yield some decent profits.