In most other MMO’s crafting is seen as an add-on profession or side activity. In Guild Wars 2, gone are the days of little to no XP when crafting, as crafting can be an essential part to character development. In some cases, as stated by ArenaNet’s Linsey Murdock in a recent forum post, even the only way to go about leveling your character. As someone who found out mid BWE2 just how valuable crafting can be, I can assure you that at least 2 or 3 of my mid 20′s levels were gained from simply experimenting with the crafting system through mats I had collected along the way. And that was just the beginning.

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.