Uncovering Disciplines: Artificer, Huntsman & Weaponsmith

After a couple of posts related to other subjects, it is time to once again get back to uncovering the remaining crafting disciplines. The same way as armor crafting disciplines resemble each other, so do the weapon crafting disciplines, and hence this blog post covers all them: the artificer, the huntsman and the weaponsmith.

Artificer crafts magical weapons, namely scepters, staves, foci and tridents. The primary material for crafting these magical weapons is wood, but some metal is also required. Wood can be obtained by logging trees scattered throughout Tyria, and metal and can be obtained by mining mineral veins.

Huntsman crafts ranged weapons and items commonly used when hunting, namely shortbows, longbows, rifles, pistols, harpoon guns, warhorns and torches. The primary material for crafting these weapons is wood, but some metal is also required.

Weaponsmith crafts weapons for melee combat, namely swords, greatswords, daggers, maces, hammers, axes, shields and also spears. The primary crafting material for a weaponsmith is metal, but some wood is also needed.

In addition to these basic materials, all of the weapons crafting disciplines need fine, rare and exotic materials. Fine materials are mostly used for crafting inscriptions and consumables, rare materials are used for crafting sigils, and exotic materials are used for crafting exotic weapons. These materials are mostly obtained from enemies.

The pattern for crafting weapons is very simple: a weapon consists of two basic parts and an inscription. The basic parts are called heads, casings, cores, shafts, rods, blades, hilts, backings, bosses, hafts, horns, barrels, mouthpieces, harpoons, staves, frames, stocks and handles. These basic parts need to be combined with an inscription in order for the weapon to have attributes.

A weapon consists of two basic components and an inscription.

The inscription is the part of the weapon which defines what attributes the weapon will have. If the inscription for example has precision and power, the weapon will also have precision and power. The available attributes for weapons are Condition Damage, Critical Damage, Healing Power, Power, Precision, Toughness, Vitality, and also the so called secondary attributes such as Magic Find. Inscriptions are made of dowels, which again are constructed of wood and sometimes also metal. When the dowel is combined with some fine materials, the dowel gains its attributes and becomes an inscription.

In addition to crafting weapons, artificer, huntsman and weaponsmith can also craft sigils and consumables. Sigils are upgrade components for weapons and crafting them requires rare materials. The three disciplines don't craft the same sigils; instead each discipline has access to four different kinds of sigils of varying levels: minor, major and superior. Artificer crafts Sigils of Frailty, Impact, Elemental Slaying and Luck; huntsman crafts Sigils of Paralyzation, Icebrood Slaying, Conjuration and Speed; and weaponsmith crafts Sigils of Destroyer Slayer, Doom, Sanctuary and Strength.

There are three different levels and 12 different kinds of sigils that can be crafted by the weapon crafting disciplines.

As mentioned before, the disciplines can also craft consumables. An artificer crafts tuning crystals, a huntsman crafts oils and a weaponsmith crafts sharpening stones. In addition there's one more consumable that only the artificer discipline can craft: potions. All of these consumables work in the same way: one double clicks the item in their inventory in order to gain a combat buff that lasts for 30 minutes.

There are many levels of consumables, and the higher their level the greater benefit they offer to their user. Tuning crystals give condition damage, oils give precision and sharpening stones give power equal to a certain percentage of one's toughness and vitality. Potions are different and instead of increasing one's attributes, they provide an increase to damage and protection versus a certain enemy type. In addition to their normal bonuses, all of the consumables also increase experience gain from kills by 10. There can be only one consumable active at any one time.

Potion of Undead slaying increases damage done to undead
enemies by 7% and at the same time reduces the
damage received from the undead by 4%.

The weapon crafting disciplines are great choices for any profession. The consumables they craft are useful and the weapons can be used by almost any profession, the only exception being the elementalist who is incapable of using huntsman crafted weapons. Instead of thinking about the profession, making the choice rather comes down to what weapons and attributes one likes to use on their character. One might at first think that an artificer would be the best choice for a mesmer, because a scholar is likely to use magical weapons, but if one rather uses a great sword, why not be a weaponsmith? Or if one wishes to craft consumables that boost precision based on a certain percentage of toughness and vitality, there's nothing stopping them from being a huntsman.

Uncovering Disciplines: Armorsmith, Leatherworker & Tailor

On the 16th of August a post uncovering the jeweler discipline was published in this blog, and now it is time to continue uncovering the remaining crafting disciplines. Armorsmith, leatherworker and tailor mostly craft armor of different types. The disciplines have many similarities and hence this post will uncover all three of them.

Armorsmith crafts heavy armor that is used by the soldier professions, namely guardians and warriors. The primary crafting materials for crafting heavy armor are metal and cloth, both of which come in different types. Metal is mostly obtained by mining mineral nodes scattered throughout Tyria, but it can also be salvaged from heavy armor and weapons that are made of metal. Cloth is obtained through salvaging light armor, and certain enemies also carry it. If you wish to know more about gathering the materials, feel free to read an earlier post in this blog that covers the subject in greater detail.

Leatherworker crafts medium armor that is used by the adventurer professions, namely engineers, rangers and thieves. The primary crafting materials for crafting medium armor are leather and cloth. Both of these materials are obtained by salvaging medium armor for leather and light armor for cloth, but the materials can also be obtained from enemies.

Tailor crafts light armor that is used by the scholar professions, namely elementalists, mesmers and necromancers. Tailor uses large quantities of cloth for crafting armor, but some leather is also required.

In addition to these basic crafting materials, the three disciplines also use different types of thread for sewing, fine materials for making insignias, rare materials for making runes, and runes of holding for making item containers. Different types of thread and runes of holding can be bought from the armorsmith, leatherworker and tailor trainers at the crafting stations, while the fine and rare materials for insignias and runes are mostly obtained from enemies.

Fine materials are used  for crafting insignias.

There are six different types of armor pieces one can craft with these disciplines: head, shoulder and chest pieces, pants, gloves and shoes. Crafting armor follows a simple pattern: a piece of armor is constructed of two basic armor pieces and an insignia. The basic armor components are made of the basic materials and are called panels, straps, linings, casings, plates and paddings, and in the case of shoes uppers and soles.

In order to complete an armor piece, the basic components need to be combined with an insignia, which defines the attributes the armor piece will have. For example if the insignia has Power, the armor piece will also have Power. The available attribute types for insignias are Condition Damage, Critical Damage, Healing Power, Power, Precision, Toughness, Vitality, and also the so called secondary attributes such as Magic Find. Crafting of insignias requires fine materials.

A piece of armor is constructed of two basic armor components and an insignia.

In addition to crafting armor, armorsmiths, leatherworkers and tailors can also craft item containers. Item containers, also known as bags, are usually crafted by combining some basic materials with a rune of holding. Runes of holding come in different levels and can be bought from the discipline trainer. Due to the runes of holding being fairly expensive from a low level character's point of view, crafting the most basic bags doesn't require runes of holding.

There are more than just normal bags that simply have a certain amount of item space; there are bags with specific functions. Armorsmith can craft Equipment Boxes, which draw all armor pieces and weapons into them before they get placed in any other bags. Leatherworkers can craft Oiled Packs, which in a similar manner are the primary bags for junk items. Tailor can craft Craftsman's Bags, which serve as the primary bags for looted crafting materials. One can place any kind of item in these bags, but their function simply draws the specific kinds of items in them if there is an empty space. In addition to these bags, the disciplines can also craft Invisible Bags (tailor), Invisible Leather Packs (leatherworker) and Safe Boxes (armosmith), which all have the same function: Items that are placed in these bags can not be sold to merchants and will not move when the inventory is automatically sorted. The recipes for crafting these bags are obtained by making discoveries.

There's one more thing that armorsmiths, leatheworkers and tailors craft: runes. Runes are upgrade components that can be applied to pieces of armor with an upgrade slot. Much like insignias, runes also have certain attributes which get applied on the armor piece. Runes can also give additional benefits if one applies one or more of the same kind of rune to their armorset. One piece of armor can only contain one rune, but if the same kind of rune is placed into another armor piece, the rune will give an additional bonus to the user. There can be maximum of four bonuses. Crafting of runes often requires rare materials.

If one applies the same kind of runes to several armor pieces,
they can get additional benefits.

Armorsmith, leatherworker and tailor are great disciplines for those players who wish to be able to craft armor, bags and runes for their own characters, or wish to make some money by selling those products to other players. In addition to the disciplines already covered in this blog, there's four more disciplines that will be covered in the very near future: artificer, huntsman, weaponsmith and chef. If you are interested in knowing more about those disciplines, feel free to check this blog again later on.

Uncovering Disciplines: Jeweler

Considering the topics covered in the previous post, moving straight to talk about the jeweler discipline might seem like an awkward choice. At first covering the crafting station's interface and explaining the discovery system sounded like the most logical topic for this post, but then again being able to use an already explained discipline as an example would made things more comprehensible. That is why this post explains what being a jeweler is all about, and only the next post will cover the features of the crafting stations and explain the discovery process.

A jeweler crafts accessories which are pieces of equipment usable by all professions. There are equipment slots in the Hero panel for each type of accessory: two slots for rings, two for earrings and one for a necklace. In addition to the accessory type of equipment, a jeweler also crafts jewels which are upgrade components for accessories with an upgrade slot, but which can also be used for crafting accessories.

A jeweler uses different types of metals and gemstones as raw materials. Metals are obtained by mining mineral veins and by salvaging weapons and armor that are made of metal. Gemstones are frequently obtained when mining mineral veins and logging trees. They can also sometimes be found when looting an enemy's corpse. In addition, pearls can be found inside of clams, which are marked on the map as plant nodes. Higher tier gemstones can also be transmogrified by the jeweler. Transmogrification is explained in greater detail later in this post.

The crafting process happens at the jeweler specific crafting stations, which are marked on the map with the purple gem icon seen on the top of this post. Crafting jewelry mostly follows a clear pattern. A piece of jewelry consists of a gem, a setting for attaching the gem, and the base component: chain for necklaces, band for rings and hook for earrings. These are the vital components for crafting the different types of accessories.

There is only one kind of each type of component per material tier, even though there are several different kinds of components in real life. There are recipes which clearly indicate that one is crafting a stud earring, such as Amber Copper Stud, but still the component which pierces the ear is called a hook. There is also many different kinds of settings for jewelry in real life, but only one type of setting for each material tier in Guild Wars 2.

A photo of a silver ring and a stud earring, as well as an earring with a hook. From the
images you can notice how there exists very different kinds of settings in the real world.

In addition to rings, necklaces and earrings, a jeweler crafts jewels. There is one more component which was not mentioned earlier: filigree. A filigree is a very delicate decoration, made of extremely thin threads of metal. When complete, the design of a filigree is similar to lace. Jewels are made by decorating a gemstone with a filigree. Jewels can be used for upgrading accessory type of equipment. While a raw gemstone can be used as an upgrade for any kind of piece of equipment, a jewel can only be used for upgrading accessories, but in compensation has a higher amount of attribute points than a raw gemstone.

Jewels can also be used for crafting master versions of jewelry. There exists two versions of jewelry recipes: normal and master. Master versions of jewelry have a slightly higher amount of attribute points than their normal versions and are green quality items instead of blue. While a normal version is crafted using a raw gemstone, a master version is crafted using a jewel made of the same kind of gemstone and a filigree. The recipes are called exactly the same apart from the note (Master) at the end of the name of the master version. The item names are slightly different.

Normal version of Garnet Stud on the left and its master version on the right.

In addition to using gemstones as components for accessories and jewels, jewelers can also transmogrify lower tier gemstones into one tier higher gemstones. There are total of six different tiers of gemstones. Transmogrifying a gemstone requires 1-2 different kinds gemstones of the previous tier and one pile of dust which type depends on the tier level. There are some exceptions to the rule though: For example a second tier gemstone called Sunstone Nugget requires one lower level gemstone, a pile of dust and a Copper Doubloon.

The attributes of a crafted item depend on what kind of an activator component was used for making it. Inscriptions are activator components for weapons, and insignias are activator components for armor. For jewelers the activator components are the different kinds of gemstones and hence the attributes of an accessory or a jewel depend on the gemstone used. The lowest tier gemstones have only one type of attribute: Amber increases Condition damage, Garnet increases Power, Malachite increases Toughness, Pearl increases Healing, Tiger's Eye increases Precision and Turquoise increases Vitality. The higher tier gemstones have 2-3 different attributes. Most of the time when one transmogrifies gemstones, the transmogrified gemstone will have the same attribute types as the materials used for the transmogrification.

Jeweler is a good choice of a discipline for any profession, because every type of character can benefit from the products. Also, for the vast majority of time, gemstones are only used by the jeweler discipline so one does not need to worry about saving those materials for another discipline. The products made by a jeweler will most likely sell well in the Trading Post because accessories are only rarely given as rewards or found as loot, and a jeweler is the only source of enhanced upgrade components for accessories.