The logic behind crafting armor in Guild Wars 2

[Gorani]

This short guide should provide you with enough basic information to try armour crafting in Guild Wars 2 yourself and find new recipes for other kinds of armor.

1. How to work with basic material ("jute" as an example)

Jute Scrap		Bolt of Jute		Spool of Jute Thread
	Gets refined to		Gets used with
You can get those by salvaging armor parts with basic salvage kits.		You can either craft these (2 scraps make 1 bolt) or salvage them with more advanced salvage kits		You will probably have to buy that material from a Master Crafter of the profession at a crafting station

All other basic materials (e.g. leather and ore) work in a similar way, plus a refinement material you have to buy like Tin Ore, which is the equivalent of the Spool of Jute Thread. All basic materials can be refined at "Level 1" of the crafting profession. As it is very easy to craft those, you will not get any experience points for doing so, once you reach Level 20. The higher the level, the less XP you will get from creating low level crafting items.

2. How to manufacture basic armor parts ("light armor" as an example)

Bolt of Jute		Jute Tunic Lining
	Gets crafted to
Bolt of Jute + Spool of Jute Thread + Stretched Rawhide Leather		Jute Tunic Panel
+ +	Gets crafted to
One part usually is less expensive, needing only few amounts of the profession's basic material (e.g. jute), the other one will need additional refinements, like thread & leather (e.g. for the light armor)		The simple armors (might change later at more advanced recipes) require two parts to complete in the next step, described below

All armor is composed of two basic parts, which are the foundation of the actual armor, we will create in the next step. There is no "bank storage" for those parts, so you should create them only when you have a lot of storage space or you will use them immediately to create a complete armor piece.

3. Now, crafting the actual armor ("light armor chest piece" as an example)

Jute Tunic Lining + Jute Tunic Panel + "Prefix component"		Mighty Embroidered Coat
+ +	Gets crafted to
Once you place the two parts together on the crafting table you need to add a component that will provide the prefix of the armor, in this case a "Vial of Weak Blood" for the "Mighty" prefix		Mighty adds a bonus to Power

The "Prefix component can be a monstrous drop (like Vial of Weak Blood) or an Insignia (like Mighty Jute Insignia). The later one needs to be crafted separately, but provides a better bonus to the attribute you want to boost (see #5 below).
During the second press beta, we made this little video to show you the process described in step #2 and #3.



4. What are the costs in coin for you?

Jute Scrap	Spool of Jute Thread	Rawhide Leather Scrap	Vial of Weak Blood	Mighty Embroidered Coat
2 copper each; 20 copper total	8 for each (bought with 10 uses for 80 copper)	2 copper each; 4 copper total	12 copper	Sells for 15 copper

The crafting itself is free, but you have to take into account that you have the chance to sell all the materials separately. As you can see, selling all the components (44 copper), especially the "prefix component" would earn you more money, than selling the crafted item to a merchant for coin. If you sell to a player, you would have to charge there times the listed price to make small monetary profit (45 copper). More time crafting item and comparison to an armor bought at a merchant, will show us a reasonable price for the item in player to player trading.

5. Adding monstrous parts or insignias, what is better?

As a rule of thumb, it is always better to create an Insignia than to add just the monstrous part, as the bonus you will get will be higher. Any armor beyond the most simple recipes might not even accept the raw material ingredient.

Simple "Mighty" Prefix	Mighty Jute Insignia
	+ =
Vial of Weak Blood	Vial of Weak Blood + Bolt of Jute

Be aware that unlike in Guild Wars 1, the Insignia can not be applied to an existing armor, but has to be used during creation of the item. Only "suffix" items, like runes, can be added to the upgrade slot of the armor later on.

6. What items provide which bonus?

"Mighty" Prefix	"Vital" Prefix	"Resilient" Prefix	"Festering" Prefix	"Precise" Prefix	"Healing" Prefix
Vial of Weak Blood	Bone Chip	Tiny Scale	Tiny Venom Sac	Tiny Claw	Tiny Totem
Bonus to "Power"	Bonus to "Vitality"	Bonus to "% "reduces" Condition length"	Bonus to "Condition damage"	Bonus to "% critical chance"	Bonus to "Healing"

All the items listed above are components with no or small (25) Level requirements. Later in the game you will find stronger variations of those items, which will grant bigger bonuses. Keep in mind that there are "soul bound" drops which might look like they could be salvaged for crafting items (e.g. Fins), but that will not work (at least at the moment).

	better material is		better material is
Bone Chip		Bone Fragment		Bone Shard

There are different levels of power for each line of the crafting components, like "bigger chunks of bone", which will be needed for armor made of a higher quality material (e.g. silk instead of jute). According to Linsey Murdock, you can not add a lower or higher quality item to the crafting table than the one designated for the difficulty level of the piece of armor. In other words: To create a piece of armor made of jute, you have to add a "Bone Chip" and not a "Bone Fragment", although it is of higher level of quality.

7. Upgrade component, using crafted or raw items?

Raw component	Rune component
Turquoise Pebble	Rune of Life
Bonus to Vitality (+3)	Bonus to Life (+20)

Once your armor is done, you can add a "suffix" component. Like with the prefix component you can either add a salvaged item (like the Turquoise Pebble, which can also be found while mining ore as a rare drop) or craft a rune, like the Rune of Life (recipe for the tailor profession: 2 Bolts of Jute + 1 Stretched Rawhide Leather Square). Time will tell what kind of runes each armor crafting profession will be able to create and what will only be available through karma vendors or via a coin purchase.

8. The evolution of creating better armors (light armor, made by a tailor)

Since we have been limited to the lower level areas so far, I could not explore possibilities with high level materials. The options of additional material you can buy at the Master Crafters shows us what lines of materials will be available later on in the game. As it is possible that not all materials can be purchased with coin, this leaves us with six lines of armor sets for the tailor. According to Linsey Murdock, each material will create a unique look, or skin. The armor created with jute however, will be limited to a low requirement level. In other words, a high level tailor can not create high level jute armor. You can use the available Transmutations Stones to keep the look of the jute armor for you high level armor.

Spool of Jute Thread	Spool of Wool Thread	Spool of Cotton Thread	Spool of Linen Thread	Spool of Silk Thread	Spool of Gossamer Thread

9. Is there a regional component involved in crafting armor?

At the current state on the game, once you progress to higher level areas, higher value materials will drop and can be salvaged. Unlike with cooking, armor (and weapon) crafting has no regional components. This means a Norn would not have to go to Sylvari lands to find a particular material to craft a piece of armor.

9. Can different races create different items?

No. A Sylvari creates the same pieces of armor as a Charr or Norn. Racial specific types of armor have to be bought and can not be crafted.

[Gorani]

After the second BWE, a lot of people had the chance to try crafting. If the subject still leaves you puzzled and confused, this small starter's guide will help you understand the concept.

[RD]

Thanks for this. Looks really, really complicated and annoying. Good thing I hate crafting.

What did you think of the system?

[Lady Rhonwyn]

I personally loved the system. I already liked crafting in Aion, but there you had to craft item after item after time, and then buy a recipe and repeat the process. In GW2, I felt I never had to repeat any recipe twice (except naturally if it was only a part). I thought it felt a bit like in RL, you get one example and then you start to experiment with that one example. What if I do that differently and add not that item, but this item to the mix?

[Gorani]

The system isn't bad. You get the most XP by discovering new recopies and not with everyday crafting "basics". Which means to get to a higher level, you have to craft items you can't use at the same time (and will have to give away, salvage right away - with very bad returns - or sell them at low prices at the auction house). Every six prefixes have to be discovered for every armour part to make a significant advance in the craft (multiply by chest, legs shoes and gloves + helmets & shoulders a little later).
As crafted armour is tiered to levels 10, 15, 20 etc. you usually advance faster with your crafting skills, than with your character skill, so you have to "hold back" crafted armour. But you should not forget, that once the game is out regularly there won't be "speed crafting" like Rhon & I did on the BWEs, to get new recipes fast within a few hours of game play to show you guys the results.

PS: I don't know if other people noticed the connection or used it, but crafting for guildies is great. In the guild roster, you can see the crafting professions. If you ant an item (e.g. jewellery hardly was available as drops IRC, just sent your "guild crafter" the materials for the item you need, he will craft the item and send it back. This way I made some nice pearl items for Rhon (which also gave me XP to advance) or a basic set for rings & earrings for Rei (just to help out).