Guild Wars 2 - Basic Guide to Crafting and Gathering

[quickshot101]

youtu.be/2zyumiL1eqo

A simple look into crafting. Hopefully helpful to new players who have no idea how to start crafting but want to give it a try.

This was a new type of video for me so any feedback would be fantastic, positive or negative.

For those who dont want to view the video (I know a lot of people wont view videos posted on forums) here is the ROUGH transcript for the video. It is in NO WAY a 'full clean' script, just something I could use to keep me on track while recording.


A Guild wars 2 basic crafting guide. this will be a fast run through of how to start crafting in gw2. The reason I feel its important is because unlike a lot of mmos (not all) but a lot of mmos you get xp for gathering/mining nodes, and Its not a small amount either. Just gathering nodes over a 10min period on my way around doing quests I got a few bars of xp. I even at one point ran across a farm field with I kid you not like 15-20 cabbages all together, which resulted in about a whole bar of xp in 25seconds lol.

Another reason crafting is more note worthy in guild wars 2 is because the stuff you start crafting right of fthe bat is useful. I was level 10 after clearing most of the starting human area and buying random rep gear, when I went to start crafting. The very first 'items' I could make we equal and in a few cases even better then what I had from questing and rep.

I have no idea how useful it will be down the road near end game times but just for the bonus xp and bonus items I really feel for once crafting is worth it. So lets have a look real quick at the basics to start crafting.


First you will want to go to your local hub of crafting vendors. There are a bunch scattered throughout the world but the best place to tell you to go is your local major city or lions arch. You can pick up a total of 2 crafting professions. You can pick from *READ BOTTOM BOLD* After you have picked the 2 you want for the time being go in and have a look at the starting recipes so you have a idea what u need to gather.

Now most areas near crafters have npcs selling some crafting items, so you can get a bunch to start there. You will then want to go buy a pack (1 for now, which I believe is a stack of 50) of hatches,sickles,mining picks. You will then want to equip these item by right clicking them in your inventory and clicking equip. These items dont have anything to do with your weapons. you can have your weapons equipped and all 3 gathering tools equipped at the same item, as the crafting tools use there own special invintory slot.

Now go out into the world and start gathering. There are obv locations for certain gathering nodes. Mining nodes tend to be near rocks and hills and cliff walls. Trees, well... tend to be near other trees lol. and produce tend to be on farms but will grow in many places, but the majority are on farms it seems. Most importantly all gathering nodes in a small area around you will be revealed on your Minimap, so keep a eye on your minimap when running around. ALSO take note that for now in the current beta the nodes 'seem' to spawn in the same locations, so once your learn there spots you can go back there later. Also from what I experienced other players can gather nodes and you will still have access to gather them. There where times I would see a player grab a node before me but when I got there 10sec later it was still available.
Finally you can also salvage unwanted equipment using salvage kits (available at most merchants) which will yield you more mats for crafting as well.

Now that you got a bunch of mats go back to town and start crafting! I was just starting to level my crafting up so atm I dont have access to any neato recipes, but it works like most mmos crafting systems. Get mats, take to a crafting location, hit button and bam it creates the item. no sweat

There is also a a section where you can mix and match different crafting mats in a attempt to learn a new recipes. I didnt have time to delve into that so I cant give you much info about it, for the most part seems to be a guessing game/luck. I wouldnt worry much about it though as im sure there will be 100s of websites in a few weeks with all the mats/recipes,and how to get said recipes. So personably il wait for them or maybe try to find some myself later in beta. For now I really dont care much about them and just want to play the game

---------- Post added 2012-06-09 at 09:54 PM ----------

I will update the post with more info on discovery later this weekend.