Crafting Professions - Obvious choices?

[sorudo]

the reason why i enjoy crafting in GW2 is simply because of all the flexibility and ease of use, there is no need to change something that works better them any crafting system i have encountered.
lotro is forced with groups so you depend on other players to make your materials, WoW doesn't save progress when you switch crafting profession and champions online has such a horrible system it just makes more sense to put dirt in soup them using that system.

[Lady Rhonwyn]

I have a feeling people arent going to like what im about to say...but dont judge, its just a thought. Dont hate on me too hard.

Lately I've been thinking that it would interesting if each character could only master one crafting disapline. This would force people to really think about how they play their characters. It might cause people to favor certain weapons based on what they can craft. It would also help the economy because you may have to buy your bow from someone else if you can't make it yourself, and in exchange, it might be easier to sell your staff because someone else can't craft it themselves. I just don't see how under the current system I would be buying and selling much, when, with a little hunting and gathering, I can make anything I may like or need. I may purchase supplies from others, but not actual items. By making them myself I gain xp and crafti experience. Not to mention the experience from going out to hunt down the supplies I need. This also might enchorage more people to purchase extra character slots, which is good for anet's bank accounts (and after what happened with 38 studios I think we all can agree that MMOs making money isn't a bad thing). I just think it would be more interesting and challenging if you had to really think about which crafting professions you take on.

I was thinking about that too. But consider. Crafting takes time, money and karma and levels (let's forget about the storage for now). During the last beta, I was trying to get my cooking to 150 points. I got stuck at 148 because, a) I couldn't get all ingredients I needed (as they weren't available during the beta), b) I couldn't get all the ingredients I needed (as I was short of karma), c) I couldn't get all the ingredients I needed (as I was too low level). And that was only one profession. Maxing all professions on multiple characters will take a lot of time.

Your idea is sound, but largely irrelevant if they don't add soulbound, difficult to obtain patterns or cooldowns for the rare patterns/crafting materials similar to WoW. Otherwise, all that you need to do is build multiple characters at the same time and make all your own stuff. The only people buying from the auction house will be the lazy or ignorant.

I believe there are soulbound recipes. Those you buy from certain karma vendors.

[AJ Wolf]

After spending a lot of time crafting this weekend...I don't think it's really worth it to double up on any crafting professions. The only reason to do so would be to quick boost a new character after the game has been out a while. It takes a LOT of supplies to keep leveling your crafters, and many of them are used by more than one discipline already.

Also, from what we've seen, it seems whichever toon dedicates to cooking is going to have a major drain on their Karma that other crafting professions won't have. Definitely won't want two of my toons having their Karma sucked out of them. Can't wait to see high levels of crafting/nodes so I can see if this is just a cooking thing, or it just starts sooner with cooking.

[Alaris]

My question is that with 6 characters, do I need to have some crafts in double? Cooking perhaps if it's a constant drain?

Then again, I have no intent on using consumables.

[sorudo]

i just take what each character needs, even if it means that some take the exact same crafting profs.
i can jiggle around trough the bank but it's a hell when the bank becomes a storage of stuff, we already have these problem with GW1 so it's simply better to keep crafting per character and share materials trough your account.

[Penniegrim]

This thread just reminded me of something Linsey Murdock said on the beta forums:

Linsey Murdock -

"The way leveling XP gain works in crafting is this: For leveling a discipline from 0-400, you will gain 10 levels along the way. By maxing out all 8 disciplines, you will gain 80 levels. That means you could dedicate a character to crafting, feed it all the mats you get on other characters and level it all the way to 80 without ever needing to kill a thing. As hardcore crafters, we think that is pretty cool."

So, this pose a question, do I make an crafting alt or do I try to split the crafting proffesions up on different chars?

[Alaris]

@Penniegrim:

Supposedly, there's a cost to switching profession, so you're better off having a few alts with 2 professions each. There's what, 8 crafting professions? So 4 alts covers that.

My goal might be to shift crafting materials etc to whatever character has lower levels to help him level up. It's like being able to play my main, and feed XP to my alts.

[raspberry jam]

Linsey Murdock -

"The way leveling XP gain works in crafting is this: For leveling a discipline from 0-400, you will gain 10 levels along the way. By maxing out all 8 disciplines, you will gain 80 levels. That means you could dedicate a character to crafting, feed it all the mats you get on other characters and level it all the way to 80 without ever needing to kill a thing. As hardcore crafters, we think that is pretty cool."

Why would reaching level 80 mean something to a character that is dedicated purely to crafting?

Ohwait maybe because reaching max level is the ultimate goal despite all the nonsense about "it's about the journey, not the goal".

[Gorani]

My goal might be to shift crafting materials etc to whatever character has lower levels to help him level up. It's like being able to play my main, and feed XP to my alts.

Just FYI. You won't be able to advance by just crafting basic & refined materials. Some "true items" are needed so you can reach the next threshold and use new basic mats.

[nkuvu]

Arise, semi-dead thread, you have exactly the topic I wish to discuss.

With the game 26 hours (or less!) away, I figured I should sort out my crafting disciplines. I'm very much looking forward to crafting, but I wanted to make sure I paired up the right discipline with the right character. I know I can switch later, but if I want to move a discipline to another character... start over (as far as I know).

I took some time to watch some crafting video guides -- the guides from Enigmius1 turned out to be quite clear and gave me enough to have a decent idea of how I want to approach this. Note that the videos are somewhat dated given the BWE changes (like having separate crafting stations and banks), but overall I think the information is still quite good. Also note that due to my ancient computer, I downloaded the videos (streaming and playing simultaneously doesn't work for me) so missed any annotations he may have added. But! Beside the point.

In the end, I decided on the following:

Warrior: Armorsmith, Weaponsmith
Necromancer: Artificer, Jeweler
Engineer: Huntsman, Leatherworker
Elementalist: Tailor, Chef
Guardian: Gatherer extraordinaire (I know everyone can gather, this just sounded better than "lazy Asura with no job")