GW2 Crafting Guide - Learn all the Crafting Professions!

Guild Wars 2 Crafting Guide

Crafting is one of the staples of the MMORPG genre. Different games use this feature, either as a money-making method or as a way to get the most powerful items. There's a lot of variance in the crafting systems and the impact that they have on the respective games. That being said, almost every MMORPG has some semblance of crafting.

In Guild Wars 2, crafting is divided into nine disciplines. There are three armor crafters - Armorsmith, Leatherworker, and Tailor. Disciplines responsible for creating weapons are Weaponsmith, Huntsman, and Artificer. Finally, we have the three remaining ones – Chef, Jeweler, and Scribe. Each character can have two of them active at a time, but you can spend gems on buying Additional Crafting Licenses to increase this number up to four.

At the same time, you won't lose your progress when you "deactivate" a discipline. You will just have to pay a moderate amount of money to get it back (the maximum cost is 50 silver). It means that you can have all nine disciplines maxed out on a single character, but you're going to spend some money on swapping if you decide to do so. If you feel like you need access to each crafting class, we recommend scattering them over 3-5 different characters.

There are seven tiers of recipes in GW2 crafting. In order to access the higher ones, you have to level up your crafting discipline. The only way to do it is by producing items. Maxing out a discipline requires a lot of materials that you're going to use solely for getting the crafting experience. The recipe tiers are Novice, Initiate, Apprentice, Journeyman, Adept, Master, and Grandmaster. The Grandmaster tier is only available for armor and weapon crafters as well as Chef. There are two important breakpoints in the progression of your crafting disciplines: level 400 (Master recipes) and level 500 (Grandmaster recipes). 

Mechanics of GW2 Crafting

The mechanics themselves are relatively easy. All crafting takes place in the Crafting Stations. In order to create an item, you have to approach a station associated with the specific discipline. When you do it, you'll open the crafting panel. It has five tabs: Discovery, Production, Material Storage, Bank, and Wardrobe.

The Discovery panel allows you to discover the new recipes that your character doesn't know yet. You can do it by combining materials and components of an existing recipe. Every time you do that, you will receive bonus experience for your crafter. If you don't have experience with crafting, it's best to use some external sources that list the recipes available in the game while you're in the Discovery tab.  However, some of the more valuable crafts can only be unlocked with special consumable items – recipe sheets.   

The Production part displays all the recipes that your character already knows. It's the most standard crafting window that you're going to use if you need multiple units of the same component or item. You just have to click on the recipe and it will display all the necessary ingredients (raw materials and the specific item components). You will see that the recipe names are written in different colors – it shows their difficulty in relation to your crafting level. The red ones are too difficult to make. The orange, yellow, green, and blue is all possible to craft. You can also produce grey items, but they won't reward you with any crafting experience. Besides the item recipes, there are ones that let you refine raw materials into more intricate components.

The remaining tabs provide access to your bank, materials, and cosmetic items. They're not as important, but the total access to your material storage without leaving the Crafting Station is exceptionally convenient.

The Value of Crafting in Guild Wars 2

The economy of crafting in Guild Wars 2 is very specific. Most professions don't access to any valuable recipes before hitting level 400. At this breakpoint, the equipment crafters unlock the Master Craftsman tier that allows them to craft Exotic gear (not best in the slot, but definitely worthwhile) and special items called gifts. Gifts are used as components when making Legendary weapons. Legendaries are the most powerful and prestigious weapons in the entire game. The sheer amount of expensive materials required to make one of these things from scratch is really formidable.

At level 500, the armor and weapon crafters get access to another class of items – Ascended. The Ascended armors are the best in the slot for every profession. Crafting them is a multi-step process that's also time-gated. A character can only use one Ascended recipe per day and it applies to all the items, but also some of the components. Crafting a full medium or light armor set from scratch takes 36 days – that's why people buy and sell their components for a high price on the Trading Post. Ascended weapons are stronger than Exotic and equal in power to the Legendaries. In terms of raw stats, they can be considered best in the slot. A lot of players grind for the Legendaries because of the cosmetic value and the prestige that comes with it.

The crafting recipes before level 400 are almost worthless. It's caused by a relatively small amount of low-level players. Guild Wars 2 veterans who make new characters have multiple ways of getting past the early levels (either with Tome of Knowledge or with a leveling strategy). At the same time, many players still level the crafting disciplines to be self-sufficient in terms of Legendaries or just to have access to every recipe in the game.

Leveling a crafting discipline is really unusual since the materials that you use on crafting items will almost always be more valuable than the final products. As we established, a lot of people level their crafters, which creates a high demand for materials in all the level tiers. They then use these materials on low-level items that nobody wants to buy since very few people are actually leveling their primary professions in the traditional way. This process is an investment – you spend gold in order to access the recipes that you want. We strongly recommend that you save some gold through farming, before starting to level your crafters. It's best to get everything you need to reach level 400 and then start using the bought materials to make items and level up. 

The rarity (or quality) of items is divided into seven tiers: Basic, Fine, Masterwork, Rare, Exotic, Ascended, and Legendary. Aside from the leveling process, you shouldn't really bother with anything below Exotic. 

GW2 Crafting Disciplines

As we mentioned, there are nine crafting disciplines that can be divided into three categories. First of all, let's talk about what each one of them does. 

Armor Crafters

Armorsmith – the discipline responsible for creating heavy armor. It's used by the soldier professions: Guardian, Warrior, and Revenant. It uses cloth and metal materials. Besides the armors, Armorsmiths can also make insignia and runes, as well as four gifts: Gift of Darkness, Gift of Light, Gift of Entertainment, and Gift of Weather.

Leatherworker – the crafting class that produces medium armor. It's the category worn by the adventurer professions – Ranger, Thief, and Engineer. They use leather and cloth as their primary materials. Just like all the other armor crafting disciplines, they can also synthesize insignia and runes. Leatherworkers can create three gifts: Gift of Nature, Gift of Stealth, and Wolf Statue.

Tailor – the crafter that makes robes for the magic-using scholar professions – Elementalist, Mesmer, and Necromancer. It utilizes cloth and leather as the base ingredients. Tailors can also craft runes and insignia. This profession has access to two gift recipes: Gift of History and Eel Statue.

The majority of runes are shared between all the disciplines. However, some of them are exclusive to a single one. For example, only Tailors can produce Superior Rune of the Scholar that works really well in power DPS builds based on critical damage. Leatherworker and Armorsmith also have some powerful exclusive runes.

Weapon Crafters

Weaponsmith – the discipline that produces all types of melee weapons in the game. They are swords, greatswords, daggers, axes, maces, hammers, and spears. Besides, they also make shields, sigils, and inscriptions. Their main components are metal and wood. Finally, the Weaponsmith discipline gives access to two gift recipes: Gift of the Moon and Gift of Metal. If you're interested in playing as a DPS, it will probably be the most valuable crafter for you, since most of the best damage-oriented builds utilize melee weapons.  

Huntsman – the crafter that focuses on the non-magic, ranged weapons, like longbows, short bows, pistols, rifles, and harpoon guns. They make the off-hand torches and warhorns too. As all the weapon crafters, they can also produce inscriptions and sigils. They use leather, wood, and metal as ingredients. Huntsmen can craft two gifts: Gift of Wood and Gift of Spiders. The ranger weapons are really useful in the open world, and some specific DPS builds. 

Artificer – this crafting discipline synthesizes the weapons and off-hands that are associated with magic. These items are staff, scepter, focus, and trident. They can also make inscriptions, sigils, potions, and tonics. It's another class that uses wood and metal as the primary materials. Finally, they can create three gifts: Gift of Energy, Gift of Souls, and Gift of Lightning. The magic weapons are not extremely popular, with the exception of staves that are a core element of basically every support build.

Other Crafting Disciplines

Jeweler – technically, it's an equipment crafting discipline, but you can only level it up to 400. As the name suggests, it uses metal and gemstones to create jewelry – amulets, rings, and earrings. It's the only class that produces gear used by every single GW2 character. There's a catch though – while their items are really strong, they're not exactly best in the slot. It means that the min-maxing hardcore players will still rely on getting their jewelry as loot from fractals and raids. Besides trinkets, Jewelers can also produce four gifts: Gift of Ice, Gift of Music, Unicorn Statue and Shark Statue.

Chef – this crafter creates consumable food items and dyes. Chefs have the same tiers of recipes as other disciplines, but it doesn't apply to their ingredients. Furthermore, they can create three gifts: Gift of Color, Gift of Water, and Vial of Liquid Flame. Chefs are a really useful discipline in the endgame when you need a lot of the most powerful consumables.

Scribe – a unique crafting discipline that's only useful for the guild-related endgame content. Instead of the usual Crafting Stations, they use the Aetheric Assembly Device located in guild halls. The Scribe places a special item called schematic inside this device and waits for it to build the item. Scribes utilize all the types of materials in their recipes. They can craft guild hall decorations and special consumables, including the ones used in World versus World. Finally, Scribes have access to three exclusive sigils: agility, concentration, and transference. Scribe recipes often are very expensive – whole guilds collect the materials needed for their hall decorations. Scribes don't craft any gifts.  

Besides, most of the crafting disciplines have access to creating some types of personal bags and boxes. 

Mystic Forge

Mystic Forge is a special type of crafting station that can be accessed from multiple locations across Tyria (including Lion's Arch). It's not directly associated with any of the crafting disciplines. In essence, all Guild Wars 2 characters are free to use it, no matter what's their character level, and if they have any crafting professions maxed out. The Mystic Forge provides access to multiple unique recipes. It's mostly known for being the station where Legendary weapons are made, but there's more. You can also use it to promote materials into a higher tier, change stats on your Ascended armors and weapons or create valuable consumables, blueprints, miniatures, and tonics.    

Next to the Lion's Arch Mystic Forge, there's a vendor called Miyani. She sells multiple materials and components used in this unique crafting station. You won't buy anything for gold though, Miyani trades in a particular currency - Spirit Shards. You can earn them for reaching a new level threshold on a maxed out character, for the Daily Completionist meta-achievement. They can also be found in many chests and loot boxes. Beyond that, Miyani can supply certain gifts in exchange for materials. Using the Mystic Forge has been a little tricky in the past and a lot of players lost tons of gold and items. There have been some reworks since then, so you don't have to worry about that, as long as you're smart about the recipes that you follow.   

Best Mystic Forge Products

If you're a player who's interested in crafting a Legendary weapon, you probably already know which one you're going for. The choice will depend on your favorite builds and aesthetic preferences. After all, you're making the Legendary weapon, so it looks cool, and you can use it as much as possible.

However, players who are not currently striving for the Legendaries, at last, can also find some useful recipes in the Mystic Forge, if they look close enough.

Combine Fine Salvage Kit, Journeyman's Salvage Kit, Master's Salvage Kit, and 3 Mystic Forge Stones to create a Mystic Salvage Kit that works identically to the Master's one, but has as many as 250 uses. It's not a must-have item, but it's good to have it in your inventory.

Promoting materials allows you to use lower tier materials and convert them into a smaller amount of higher tier ones. This feature is most often used to promote T5 mats into the T6 since they are used in all the most valuable recipes. In order to do so, you will need 250x T5 material, 5 Philosopher's Stones, a single piece of the T6 material that you want, and 5 Piles of Crystalline Dust. The amount of received T6 materials may vary, but it should average around 30. Promoting lower-tier mats has significantly higher ratios, but it's rarely useful.

To swap stat points on your Ascended gear, you're going to need five Globs of Ectoplasm, Anthology of Heroes, a new inscription/insignia (with the desired stats), and your piece of Ascended equipment. Combine them, and you'll get the altered Ascended item. However, if the primary item has any runes, sigils, or infusions, you're going to lose all of them. Its skin will also change to the default crafted one.

You can use the Mystic Forge to attune your Ascended rings. It will provide them with extra infusion slots. They are extremely useful for players who want to clear the higher level Fractals of the Mist. You can use these slots to get extra Agony Resistance – this stat is necessary to start surviving in some of the more difficult fractals. The recipe requires an Ascended ring, Philosopher's Stone, Agonized Essence, and +1 Agony Infusion. However, you can only do it once per ring, increasing the infusion slot count from 2 to 3.  

Mystic Forge also provides access to unique crafting materials (like Mystic Clovers) and multiple gifts. The full list is Gift of Might, Gift of Condensed Might, Gift of Magic, Gift of Condensed Magic, Gift of Crystalline Magic, Gift of Ephemeral Magic, Gift of Fortune, Mystic Tribute, Gift of Prosperity, Gift of Competitive Prosperity, Gift of War Prosperity as well as all Gifts of Mastery and all Gifts of Legendary Weapons.

GW2 Crafting Guide

As you can see, the crafting system in Guild Wars 2 is quite complex. Even though it's almost only relevant to the endgame characters, there's a lot of stuff to discover. From the nine crafting disciplines that you can max out, to the unique recipes in the Mystic Forge, the players' community is able to get a lot of value from GW2 crafting. We hope that this guide will help you a bit with understanding crafting even more and that you'll be able to get all the Exotic, Ascended, and Legendary items that you need! If you're interested in more MMORPG content, just search our blog and read more great guides and news posted on our site! We would really appreciate it if you share some of them with your friends and follow us on social media!

Guild Wars 2 is an MMORPG that has been developed by ArenaNet and published by NCSoft. It premiered in 2012 and received great reviews. Since then, there have been two expansions: Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire. The developers recently announced that the next expansion is on its way. Each DLC and the free update adds a lot of wonderful content to this successful game. 

FAQ

How many crafting disciplines are there in GW2?

Guild Wars 2 has nine crafting disciplines: Weaponsmith, Huntsman, Artificer, Armorsmith, Leatherworker, Tailor, Chef, Jeweler, and Scribe.

How do you make a Legendary weapon in Guild Wars 2?

You can craft Legendary weapons in the Mystic Forge. The recipes require expensive components called gifts, a precursor (which is an Exotic or Ascended weapon), and some very valuable materials.

How many crafting disciplines can you have at the same time in GW2?

Each GW2 character can have two active crafting disciplines. You can increase this number to four if you buy Additional Crafting Licenses. You can skill all nine crafters on a single character, but you'll have to pay a fee for swapping the ones that are active at the current time. That being said, you will need at least three characters to have constant access to all the crafting disciplines on your account.