For some new players crafting in Guild Wars 2 can be a little confusing especially for those who have not played any of the Beta weekends or stress tests.
So here is a great video by Enigmus that shows you the basics of crafting. I suggest you watch it as it will show you all the things that you need to know to start crafting in GW2.
For the moe experienced players this is nothing new and you will probably know all the information given already.
Remember to level any crafting discipline in Guild Wars 2 follow the 1-400 crafting guides that you can find HERE.
Most of the time in Guild wars 2 you will have to buy your gathering tools and salvage kits with gold. Around the world of Tyria you will fin renowned heart karma vendors that do sell tools and kits for karma but usually only one type.
In Lion’s Arch there is a npc that sells all tiers of salvage kits and gathering tools for karma points. her name is Frayja and she is a Master Weaponsmith. She is located in the crafting area of Lion’s Arch with the shield weaponsmith icon. Check ot the pictures for more details.
So if you don’t want to spend your ahrd earne gold on tools and salvage kits you can buy them with karma.
Leveling Cooking in Guild Wars 2 is different from the other crafting professions.
Check out this video for an introduction and basic overview f the fine arts of being a chef in GW2:
As you can see its not that complicated and it is one of the fastest to level especially if you are already level 80. It is also a great way of getting 10 levels of experience. It is great if you are leveling an alt as every food has +10% experience buff and also other specific buffs.
In Guild Wars 2 there are 8 crafting disciplines. Two of these discipline are categorized as being more advanced. Cooking belongs in this group. This is mainly due to the fact that leveling cooking takes more time, ingredients and there a lots of recipes to be discovered.
To train cooking you first have to go to a master chef that is located in every capital city, but also in some towns in the starting areas. Here is a list of the trainers in all the capital cities:
With the cooking crafting profession you can make different types of food but also dyes. Different types of foods give you different stat buffs, but all food gives you a +10% experience buff.
Dyes are named Unidentified as you don’t know the exact color that will come out. The Unidentified dye only gives you the basic color, such as yellow or brown, the rest is randomly given. To make each dye you will need stacks of 25 or 50 pieces of one ingredient. For normal dyes you will need to combine two different ingredients , for masterwork dyes you will need three.
In this cooking preview video you can seee the mechanics of cooking and the way you discover new recipes:
The main reason that cooking is an advanced crafting discipline is that you need lots of ingredients. Most of them can be collected trough foraging but some you can only get from karma vendors. Some of these vendors also sell exclusive cooking recipes so getting cooking to level 400 will take some time. You can find a list of all the ingredients here.
If you want to power level cooking you will need a lot of gold as the ingredients will be expensive and you will need lots of them to discover all the known recipes.
I would not reccomend choosing cooking as your first crafting discipline but if you do choose it here are a few tips:
1. Always have a harvesting sickle equipped and gather everything you can find.
2. After finishing renowned heart events always check the vendor to see if he sells some cooking ingredients or recipes.
3. Find the locations of herb farms (there is one in each map) and visit them once a day.
4. If you are in a helpful guild ask your guildmates to send you cooking ingredients and in exchange send them food.
Cooking is one of the most fun crafting disciplines to level in Guild Wars 2 and you can sell food and dyes to make a profit. If you will level cooking be sure to try all the foods you’ve made and always have the buffs on when leveling.
There are a lot of things that you can do in the Guild Wars 2 world to gain experience. Usually quests and exploring are the two main ways of getting experience in MMO’s.
The unique crafting system in GW2 also gives you experience. In fact you can level your character from 1 to 80 without ever doing a quest, pvp or dynamic event.
In Guild Wars 2 you can train all of the 8 crafting disciplines on one character. Leveling a crafting discipline from 1 to 400 will award you with 10 levels of experience. So if you max out all 8 crafting disciplines you character will gain 80 levels!
This might not be an option for your first character, but if you wish to level an alt in this way its totally doable. Of course you will need all the necessary materials to level all 8 crafting disciplines. You can gather them yourself or buy them of the Trading Post. Buying all the crafting material won’t be cheap so do have a good gold strategy.
You may train all of 8 crafting professions but only 2 can be active at one time. You can change your active skills by visiting a trainer and paying a fee. Upon changing a crafting skill all the recipes and progress will be saved.
