Guild Wars 2 diary: Feeling Crafty
We track the trials and travails of Ozzie's Syvari Mesmer as he gets involved in crafting in Guild Wars 2. Read on for part 3.
The crafting interface
Shacknews' Guild Wars 2 diary series follows Ozzie Mejia's journey into NCSoft's online world. Read the ongoing series here.
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replyOzzie Mejia posted a new article, Guild Wars 2 diary: Feeling Crafty.
We track the trials and travails of Ozzie's Syvari Mesmer as he gets involved in crafting in Guild Wars 2. Read on for part 3.-
Crafting in GW2 is an odd beast. It takes a bit of getting your head around, particularly the Discovery stuff. However if you look around on the net there are plenty of recipes out there for you to 'discover'. I think like many games though, crafting kind of feels like a half useful tack on in GW2. The rest of the game is incredible though :)
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The crafting has been the most difficult part of figuring out GW2. Some of them are pretty easy to find the different components like armor and weapon smithing, but it was so unclear where you were supposed to be getting leather and cloth stuff from. Also the odd limited crafting tools thing seems annoying. Like you need a special kind of axe to cut down certain kinds of trees. Overtly complicated.
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Crafting has to be the biggest grind of the entire game no doubt. I have spent 5 days harvesting and farming to raise my weaponsmith past 75. I gained 10 levels doing this so that's the one questionable benefit of doing it. However, looking into Master craft and all it is well worth the investment. karma items will not compete with top tier craft items from everything gathered.
With that said, the rest of the game is nothing short of amazing. It's been years since a MMO has sucked me in like GW2 has. I could play for mad hours a day easily.-
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He may be doing it right. I have been trying to discover things, to get my Tailoring up to 75, and failing horribly, because Jute is hard to come by, and as you get closer to 75, the more exp you need to level tailoring, so what used to give you 4 levels in tailoring, now gives you a quarter, meaning you will need yo find 4x as much Jute as before, just to break the 75 mark. This is doubly a problem when you think of the 'uncommon' items required to discover and create items, that don't drop off those mobs that drop jute.
I am sitting at 73 currently, and I just gave up on farming jute, because I would rather do a level appropriate zone. Hell I may have "out leveled" my other profession, artificing, because I am getting seasoned wood now.
Crafting is frustrating, but I will admit rewarding, because I am wielding a weapon I made, because it was better then the vendor stuff and drops so far. Really conflicting feelings about it so far.-
i dunno, i think you're doing it wrong, too. i'm at 125 tailoring and i have yet to make the same thing twice. the statement "what used to give you 4 levels in tailoring, now gives you a quarter" tells me everything i need to know -- you're clearly making the same items more than once. you should literally never make the same thing twice. your crafting experience should come from discovery and there's enough discoverable recipes, at least from 1-125, that you don't ever need to make duplicates of the same item. even at 125, a single discovery will give you more than a full level of crafting xp.
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to be absolutely clear, at any given time you've got 7 insignias and 6 armor slots you can make. this is 42 distinct items you can discover. you will level up to the next bracket way before you discover all 42 items. i will generally make myself a full set of gear to wear, and then make a few additional sets of gear using different insignias until i've unlocked a new set of insignias. the additional ones are often not complete sets, i just make whatever i can using the mats i have laying around before moving onto AH/farming for additional mats. repeat forever
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i've never gotten less than a full level on a discovery. i've only done 38 discoveries to get from 1-125.
http://chattypics.com/files/tailoring_n7ho7u1i84.png-
I just jumped in, and discovered a jacket, and did not get a level,. I finally got my level 75, by discovering 3 more items, that is 4 discoveries to make it from 73-75. If you are gaining a level per discovery, (more at early parts of the level), then congrats you are doing something that I am not doing in the discovery phase, because it has not worked that way for me. (Late in the level, early on, I get quite a few levels)
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Discoveries give less XP if they're much lower level discoveries.
For instance, if you're at level 50 crafting and you're discovering an item that says "requires crafting skill 0", you're not going to get nearly the experience you would from discovering a recipe that requires a skill of 50.
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You didn't gain 10 levels getting to 75. You gain a total of 10 levels in *maxing* a given crafting skill...that is, getting it to 400.
You might've gained a few levels on the way to 75, but it sure isn't 10.
At least for me, it's pretty rare that I am crafting stuff I can even use. Usually my crafting is popping out items a few levels ahead of me being able to wield them.
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My only tip for leveling crafters: Make sure you only use your mats for discoveries first, and then and only then, when you've discovered everything at your skill tier, make repeated versions of things.
I learned the hard way that the xp from a few discoveries is far greater than repeatedly making the same "Mighty xxyyzz". Made me waste a lot of very good materials :(-
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or you can throw stuff in the mystic forge if like to gamble ..got some really cool things out of there.
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You can make new items out of old ones at a thing called a Mystic Forge. Something like 4 items to make 1 new one. Never done it myself, but had friends tell me of its existence.
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Crafting Q - tl;dr - Do I need to buy recipes or can I make everything if I know the ingredients from various wiki entries?
After reading the crafting guides and wiki entries I think I finally understand the basics. I'm making some quality stuff as a jeweler and I was in desperate need of armor so I'm going to do that as well.
(And I'm not going to bother with a 2nd or 3rd as my character, I'll use the other profs with other characters)
But I don't understand the recipes. With jeweler it is pretty straight forward -- medal part A + B + Stone or Jewel = item.
Medal C + Stone = Jewel
Stones + dust = better stone
So wtf do I need a recipe for? -
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Does anybody else reach a stagnation point just before the next crafting tier? How do you overcome it?
i.e. I get to 50 in jewelcrafting, then using the next tier collects I easily get up to 65/75 discovering recipies using all the jewels I've collected, but from 65->75 it's a hard slog to make master jewels, or get enough mats to make the sockets/chains etc. I think I'm at 145 now and struggling like hell to make it to 150, when I can again use the 300-odd gold I've collected to probably bump me up to 165/175 and struggle again.
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https://p.twimg.com/A2ApMs9CUAAEJdY.jpg:large MY GUY IS SO SPIKY.
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I just took the wiki and made a list of things to "discover" and went item by item and I quickly boosted.
And remember as you progress you can use your previous level rocks + previous level dust to make the next level rock.
But I have two other people sending me rocks and medal so hax basically -
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Yup! It's the "bit short" bit that always happens gathering mats :)
I'd have been happy to buy the last few bits needed off the trading post, but as yet I've not been on at a time that it was working, heh. Just went on a silver hunt anyway, which got me the 150.. which then bumped me up to 220 which is of course just a few gold shy of the next rank 225 :)
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Anyone got a good 1-400 guide with exact materials to buy for each bump? I found this one but its not super specific on amounts - http://www.thehealthygamer.com/2012/09/02/guild-wars-2-cooking-guide-1-400/
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http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/56511-chef-cooking-0-400-guide/
They can't be too specific about amounts because of XP crits/boosters/etc.
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