# Forum > MMO > Guild Wars 2 > GW2 Guides >  The Art of GW2 Crafting

## zelghadis

This compendium is created based on beta tests and information gathered through various fanpqages.

*1. Basics:*
Guild Wars 2 offers us 8 different crafting professions, out of which each character can have only 2 at the same time. There's a possibility to change profession, but it costs 1 silver fo each 10 lvls, meaning 40 silver to change fully developed profession, so it's best to see what gives you what and decide on main profession pretty early.

Lvling professions is done by making items from certain recipes and discovering new ones. Additional recipes can be sometimes purchased from Heart Karma Vendors, but they are rather collectibles / nice skins etc, and should be treated like this instead of way to lvl skill.

Each Profession is divided into 5 Levels:
Novice- 0-99Initiate - 100-199Apprentice - 200-299Master - 300-399Grandmaster - 400

Most of proffesions will require you to gather materials of some sort (Herbs/Vegetables for Cooking, Metal for Armorsmith, Wood for Artificer etc). The higher lvl of map we want to gather the better item is required. Basic Items can be obtained from many vendors in main cities and hubs through the world. some Karma Merchants will also sell you Fine/Master/Rare tools - these give you better chance to rare drop, but will not let you gather on higher lvl areas.
Basic prices for Normal Gathering Tools (based on lvl):
Lvl 1 Tool - 24 copperLvl 10 Tool - 56 copperLvl 25 Tool - 88 copperLvl 40 Tool - 1 gold 20 copperLvl 55 Tool - 1 gold 60 copperLvl 70 Tool - 4 gold.




*Professions:*
Armorsmith - Heavy Armors (for Warrior and Guardian classes)Artificer - Caster Weapons (Staff, Scepter, Trident, Focus), PotionsChef - Food and Drinks giving timely buffs, DyesHuntsman - Distance Weapons (Longbow, Shortbow, Pistol, Riffle, Warhorn, Torch, Harpoon)Jeweler - Rings, Earrings, AmuletsLeatherworker - Medium Armors (for Thief, Ranger and Engineer classes)Tailor - Light Armors (for Elementalist, Mesmer and Necromancer classes)Weaponsmith - Meele Weapons (Axe, Dagger, Greatsword, Hammer, Mace, Sword, Shield, Spear)
Also each Armor-craft (Armorsmith, Leatherworker, Tailor) proffesion can also produce Bags and Runes which gives additional statistics for Sets. Weapon-craft (Artificer, Huntsman, Weaponsmith) proffesions can produce Sigils, which gives additional statistics to Weapons.

*Lvling Profession:*
Lvling Armor or Weapon creating professions is in most part pretty simple, not to say schematic. All Tiers have similar schemes for similar Sets. Yet Discovering and then Creating Runes/Sigils can be quite problematic, as you will need Rare Items for them, and these can be only obtained as loot from certain mobs, which you can be sure will be pretty hard farmed. Basic Crafting Materials can be Gathered or obtained via Salvage of specific items, and are generally pretty easy to obtain.
Lvling Jeweler will probably cost you the most money/time from all the other professions, as you will need gems for nearly every recipe (gems are obtained only as rare drop when gathering mining nodes). What's more raw gems are often used by players themselves as stat boost in armor/weapon, what will drive their prices even higher.
Lvling Cooking is in my opinion the most of fun (as this profession has crazy amount of discoveries), but keep in mind, that cooking will also take crazy amount of your bag/bank space, as very often you will have to keep many ingredients/meals to use them later for other recipes, and theres tens of items you will be forced to keep, sometimes even from low lvls (like 75) to top (like 325). For detailed information on cooking ingredients and recipes check my other topics:
http://www.ownedcore.com/forums/mmo/...l-1-400-a.html - Cooking Recipes
http://www.ownedcore.com/forums/mmo/...ents-game.html - Cooking Ingredients.

*Lvling Armor Profession:*
I will show mechanisms to lvl and create armor, based on leatherworker, but the same method can be used for other professions as well. Keep in ming that runes are not specific for every profession, so you can eqasily exchange runes with Armorsmith or Tailor. I will not talk detailed about Rare and Exotic Sets, will only mention them.

Basic Crafting Materials (Leather, Cloth) are gathered by killing specific mobs (for example Centaurs will drop leather/salvage materials, humans like pirates or bandits will drop cloth etc), or salvaging armors with salvage kits (heavy=metal, medium=leather, light=cloth), while insignia giving item basic stats are created using basic drops from mobs (bones, claws, blood, venom sacs etc). Other materoials needed (like tread, coal etc) can be bought from vendors next to crafting stations.

Basic Materials for different Tiers:
Tier1 (lvl 5-20 fine/master) - Jute, Rawhide Leather
Tier2 (lvl 25-35 fine/master) - Wool, Thin Leather
Tier3 (lvl 40-50 fine/master) - Cotton, Coarse Leather
Tier4 (lvl 55-65 fine/master) - Linen, Rugged Leather
Tier5 (lvl 70-80 fine/master/rare) - Silk, Thick Leather
Tier6 (lvl 80 exotic) - Gossamer, Hardened Leather

1 Bolt of Jute = 2 Jute Scrap, 1 Stretched Rawhide Leather Square = 2 Rawhide Leather Scrap etc.

Scheme above can be applied to all other materials.

Each set piece is made from 2 basic parts and insignia. What means for each insignia you have 6 different discoveries for every Tier - you can lvl only on those if you wish, as discoveries yield multiple experience compared to simple crafting.



Below I will present the number of materials needed for each part of armor (B=Bolt of Cloth, LS = Leather Square, SoT = Spool of Thread). for each Tier just change materials. For example if you want tier 1 you will use Bolts of Jutre, while for Tier4 Bolts of Linen. But numbers remain the same for all Tiers.

Legs:
Trouser Padding = 1B + 2SoT
Trouser Panel = 4LS + 1SoT

Shoulders:
Shoulderguard Padding = 1B + 1SoT
Shoulderguard Panel = 2LS

Chest:
Longcoat Padding = 1B+2SoT
Longcoat Panel = 5LS+1SoT

Head:
Mast Padding = 2B+1SoT
Mask Strap = 1LS

Hands:
Glove Lining = 1B+1SoT
Glove Panel = 2LS

Feet:
Boot Sole = 2LS+1SoT
Boot Upper = 2LS



Third item we need to give our armor some stats is insignia. There are 4 lvls of insignias:
Fine:
1xBolt + 3xActivator (Bone, Claw, Blood etc.)

Master:
1xBolt + 5x Spool of Thread + 8xActivator

Rare:
2xBolt + 10xSpool of Thread + 15xActivator

Exotic:
5xBolt of Gossamer + 20xSpool of Gossamer Thread + 5xActivator + 5xGlobe of Ectoplasm

Globe of Ectoplasm - it's a rare Crafting Material obtained at random by salvaging rare items with lvl 70+. Salvaging such an item can give you random number (1-5) of Ectos. Better Salvage Kit = Better Chance.



*Stats of different Insignias (Based on Activator):*

Tier1:
Sets will have 1 stat.
Bone Chip = Vitality
Vial of Week Blook - Power
Tiny Venom Sac – Condition Damage
Tiny Scale – Toughness
Tiny Claw – Precision
Tiny Totem – Healing Power

Tier 2,3:
Sets will have 2 stats.
Bone – Power / Vitality
Blood - Power / Precision
Claw – Power / Magic Find
Fang – Power / Critical Damage
Scale – Toughness / Vitality
Totem – Power / Healing Power
Venom Sac – Condition Damage / Precision

Tier 4,5,6:
Sets will have 3 stats.
Bone - Power / Vitality / Condition Damage
Blood - Power / Precision / Critical Damage
Claw - Power / Precision / Magic Find
Fang - Power / Critical Damage / Vitality
Scale - Power / Toughness / Precision
Totem - Power / Toughness / Healing Power
Venom Sac – Power / Precision / Condition Damage



Now lets say we want to create master set for lvl 65 with Power / Precision / Critical Damage. As seen above it will be 4th tier. We will need 6 master insignias, so it will be 6x1Bolt of Linen + 6x5Spool of Linen Thread + 6x8 Vial of Thick Blood.
Now we need basic components for each part of set. We look into numbers and see we will need 6xBolt of Linen 10xSpool of Linen Thread and 18xCured Rugged Leather Square.
So all in all we'll need 12xBolt of Linen, 18xCured Rugged Leather Square, 40xSpool of Linen Thread and 48 Vial of Thick Blood to create our set.
Same numbers you can use to any other Armor in every Armor Proffesion - numbers remain the same for all of them  :Smile: 



*Lvling Weapon Profession:*
This section will be updated soon, right now it's a work in progress.

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