Problem with Acquiring Gold & Profession Materials...

[Val the Moofia Boss]

So after thirty hours of play over the past couple of weeks, I've finally hit 50 on my ranger, and am looking into professions. The problem is, that the professions (I chose chef and huntsman) require materials that mostly I've never acquired (bank is full with silver ores and seasoned logs, vials of blood, etc etc), particularly small fangs and the such (which I vendored at the time I got them because I had nothing to do with them or a place to store them). So I go to the trading post, and even simple, early stuff is going for 60ish silvers! And I only have two gold (Never even bought anything with them except new mining equipment and salvage tools)! What?!?

What am I doing wrong?

[lawow74]

Nothing, really. IME you're going to have an easier time farming gold and buying what you need than trying to farm the items themselves. Chef is fairly cheap to level, shouldn't take more than 5-10 Gold to go from nothing to max. Huntsman, like all Ascended profs, will cost a lot if you want to go all the way to 500. But that's a long-term goal.

Just focus on levelling up. One thing you don't hear much about in terms of getting to 80 is the loot becomes more valuable past about level 68. That's when rares start salvaging for Ecto and can be sold for more profit on the AH. Or you can gamble and salvage them yourself, whichever you prefer. Once you get up and get access to the various dungeons, you can try doing daily runs for gold if you like that, or you can just do the world boss rotation for the guaranteed daily rare each one brings. There's also mining rich ore veins for profit, farming champs in different areas, so on and so forth. Plenty of ways to bring in money.

[Valeron]

you do know about the collections and material storage right? all crafting mats will be deposited into your material storage of your bank by right clicking the material and selecting deposit collection. There is also an option to deposit all collections that is in your inventory at once instead of individual clicking. I haven't started a new character in a long time so I don't know if they had made that info in the tool tips into their NPE patch in September. I know it wasn't in the tutorial before that.

Anyway, what you did "wrong" was selling off the mats instead of depositing them. Also, a lot of the chef crafting discipline requires gathering mats. So gather everything.

the high priced crafting mats (the early stuff) is due to it being a part of the ascended equipment recipes

[Val the Moofia Boss]

This is the first time I've heard of a mat bank. Thanks

[Valeron]

This is the first time I've heard of a mat bank. Thanks

That's what I thought. I think the devs dropped the ball a bit on teaching new players about this, especially since it isn't a common thing in MMOs.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

That's what I thought. I think the devs dropped the ball a bit on teaching new players about this, especially since it isn't a common thing in MMOs.

Seems like they really should put that into the tutorial; God knows how many fellow newbs like me threw away their mats because they didn't know what to do with them when their bags bloated up, and completely missed the right click part.

[lawow74]

Further tip: All crafting stations double as a bank access, and if you need to get to your bank for something while you're out adventuring, just enter your server's WvW Borderlands. Crafting stations are right in there. Afterwards, exit the Borderlands(not through the gate to LA, but on the Borderlands menu window)and you're right back where you left from.

[Thelxi]

Professions, and most other cool things, cost a lot of gold to level up. Gold is absolutely everything in GW2, everything revolves around it. Be prepared to either grind for pennies or whip out a credit card, welcome to GW2.

[Huehuecoyotl]

Professions, and most other cool things, cost a lot of gold to level up. Gold is absolutely everything in GW2, everything revolves around it. Be prepared to either grind for pennies or whip out a credit card, welcome to GW2.

Congratulations on managing to massively misrepresent every aspect of GW2 in a single quote. You win a cookie.

To the OP; one thing to remember, if those items you are talking about cost a lot of gold to BUY in the TP, then that means you can get a lot of gold from selling them as well. So rather than dumping them in the material storage, you could use the TP to sell as you go (you can sell things on the TP from wherever you are in the world, another thing that isn't obvious to new players). Follow that until you have an amount of gold you feel comfortable with, then you can start depositing after that.

And plan ahead with your gear upgrades; if you are 50, have a look at level 60 gear and put bids in for it (rather than buying it outright). They may take a while to come through, but by the time you are 60 you will be set. And don't feel like you have to get the best available; blue quality gear may well be a lot cheaper and you can use it, then resell it on the TP when you are finished with it (it doesn't get soulbound). That way you can actually make a profit out of it, if the bid price you paid for it is a lot lower than the selling price.

Good luck, and have fun!

[Thelxi]

Congratulations on managing to massively misrepresent every aspect of GW2 in a single quote. You win a cookie.

To the OP; one thing to remember, if those items you are talking about cost a lot of gold to BUY in the TP, then that means you can get a lot of gold from selling them as well. So rather than dumping them in the material storage, you could use the TP to sell as you go (you can sell things on the TP from wherever you are in the world, another thing that isn't obvious to new players). Follow that until you have an amount of gold you feel comfortable with, then you can start depositing after that.

And plan ahead with your gear upgrades; if you are 50, have a look at level 60 gear and put bids in for it (rather than buying it outright). They may take a while to come through, but by the time you are 60 you will be set. And don't feel like you have to get the best available; blue quality gear may well be a lot cheaper and you can use it, then resell it on the TP when you are finished with it (it doesn't get soulbound). That way you can actually make a profit out of it, if the bid price you paid for it is a lot lower than the selling price.

Good luck, and have fun!

Read your own post and try to see if you can spot the irony.

[Huehuecoyotl]

Read your own post and try to see if you can spot the irony.

Nope, can't see it. Would you like me to define irony for you, so you can figure out why you are using the word incorrectly?

But feel free to explain how I have managed to play the game for 2 years without buying any gold at all, and I have only "whipped out" my credit card a couple of times to buy gems, and the times I have it's been more about feeling like I should contribute more to the game monetarily than I do, rather than actually needing to; 2 years of play for my £30 starting cost just felt like too much of a bargain to me!

So, irony. Talk me through what you think that means.

[lawow74]

My advice on buying upgrades: Look for green-quality dropped gear, not crafted. How to tell the difference? Look at the Armor set and Weapon set info on the Wiki. Each crafted tier has its own name for the set, separate from what the dropped set is called. I personally wouldn't bother changing more than every 10 levels or so. And slap some minor runes on, they're pretty cheap and give you a little extra boost.

[Fencers]

Please keep discussion in this thread respectful. Do not resort to snarky or sly comments toward another user on this forum.

- Fencers

[azurrei]

Nope, can't see it. Would you like me to define irony for you, so you can figure out why you are using the word incorrectly?

But feel free to explain how I have managed to play the game for 2 years without buying any gold at all, and I have only "whipped out" my credit card a couple of times to buy gems, and the times I have it's been more about feeling like I should contribute more to the game monetarily than I do, rather than actually needing to; 2 years of play for my £30 starting cost just felt like too much of a bargain to me!

So, irony. Talk me through what you think that means.

The entire point of his (admittedly) pointed comment was that there is a built in shortcut within the game. You can spend 100's or 1000's of hours grinding for the materials you need or you can take the shortcut and buy gems with real money and convert those gems to gold. There is no reason to hide the ability to do so - it doesn't mean everyone in the game does it (because they clearly do not.) However, it is undeniably true that that two guys standing next to each other in game, both with full ascended armor + legendary weapons, could have gotten there by different means. One over the course of years and 1000's of hours of playing the game...and one that has been playing the game for a month or two and decided to take a shortcut. While it does cheapen the overall experience, the game is still fun and yes, you can get to your goal without spending a dime - eventually.

Now to the OP - don't worry about crafting stuff or leveling crafting skill until 80 unless you want crafting XP. The advice to by blue gear and replace it as you level is a good one as it can be saved for future alts or sold back on the TP. Yes, all materials go into the materials bank which is awesome because it saves you space! While leveling, I recommend to salvage all greens because the materials are very valuable as mid level mats are in high demand and not super easy to farm yourself...plus, you want to start building up luck on your account!. Use the cheapest salvage kits you can purchase...though I tend to buy the Basic Salvage Kits because they come in stacks of 25 instead of 15.

[Rivellana]

Further tip: All crafting stations double as a bank access, and if you need to get to your bank for something while you're out adventuring, just enter your server's WvW Borderlands. Crafting stations are right in there. Afterwards, exit the Borderlands(not through the gate to LA, but on the Borderlands menu window)and you're right back where you left from.

I've played since the game launched and never knew that. o.O

[Fencers]

I've played since the game launched and never knew that. o.O

There are a lot of "creative" shortcuts you can use to minimize travel or give yourself access to certain services quickly. Sometimes I wonder why the limits are in place to begin with- like travel fees. Because they often end up as being a minor convenience and 2/s loading screen.

OT: I think a key to crafting leveling is to harvest and sell everything as you play normally. Then rush level your crafting when you can bankroll the 1-500 process easily. Once you get over this "hump", crafting is laughably easy, OP.

[worprz]

There are a lot of "creative" shortcuts you can use to minimize travel or give yourself access to certain services quickly. Sometimes I wonder why the limits are in place to begin with- like travel fees. Because they often end up as being a minor convenience and 2/s loading screen.

OT: I think a key to crafting leveling is to harvest and sell everything as you play normally. Then rush level your crafting when you can bankroll the 1-500 process easily. Once you get over this "hump", crafting is laughably easy, OP.

This is true, I didn't do any crafting when I first leveled up. I just got my leatherworking from 1-400 in about an hour just a few days ago, it cost me around 25g.

Gold comes much easier at the higher levels than the lower levels as well. I still don't see how someone gets up over 100g though lol, it seems like everytime I get that high I end up spending it all on something.

[Valeron]

Gold comes much easier at the higher levels than the lower levels as well. I still don't see how someone gets up over 100g though lol, it seems like everytime I get that high I end up spending it all on something.

if you get a good dungeon running group, you can make gold quite easily

[Holtzmann]

So, crafting might not be a great idea at low levels. What about gathering? Should I bother with resource nodes while I go around?

[Valeron]

So, crafting might not be a great idea at low levels. What about gathering? Should I bother with resource nodes while I go around?

everything gives experience and crafting is something that you either want to do while you level on a consistent basis or just wait when you reach max level and craft everything at once