Armor Crafting Index

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Crafting Guide
Insignias

Crafting to make armor is quite a valid way of keeping yourself ready for anything in Guild Wars 2. The high stats of in-game drops, with the flexibility of picking the specific set of stats can really make that last minute difference between life and death!

Not to mention, that little extra bonus of picking what design you want to keep with you through the use of Transmutation stones, an some of the rather sweet armor design art available for the Players to build! For the art, however, you should redirect yourself to the armor art section of the Armor page, this is more about actual recipes.

Crafting Guide
Now, although the materials are different, most the different tiers of crafting require the same setup.
For instance:
1 "X" plate + 1 "X" padding + 1 "Y" Insignia = Armor
And of course, each plate requires ingots, padding requires strings and fabrics, so on and so forth. The numbers change a little, but for the most part, the same pattern is repeated across the board. Weapons are quite similar, instead using wood instead of the fabrics.

First off, Let me get some pictures here to help you understand the process a little more. I won't be actually crafting anything, but you should be getting the point.

 First, we start by refining the base materials. To make some Mighty Chain Leggings, because it will introduce you to the idea of Insignias.

 From this first picture, we can see that Mighty Chain Legs requires a few things. Specifically, an Insignia, a Bronze Chain Leggings Panel, and a Bronze Chain Legging Lining.To make these, we are going to need to refine the independent materials and work our way up, so lets start with the bottom.

 As you can see from this picture, to make (5) Bronze Ingots, it requires (10) Copper Ore and (1) Lump of Tin. To note, when crafting, some materials (such as Lumps of Tin) must be purchased from the NPC Profession trainer. Most of these are sold in sets of 10, with the price getting higher per tier of material. So, lets assume we have what it takes to make our Bronze Ingots and proceed to the next step.

 Alright, so we have our Ingots, but those Leg Linings require something not metal - fabrics In this example's case, we are talking Jute. Now, some people don't realize this, but to get fabrics you tear down light armor using a Salvage kit, and for things that require Leather, you would salvage medium armor. Scraps are good, but we need actual Bolts of fabric to begin making our armor, so we need (2) Jute Scrap to make (1) Bolt of Jute. Again, lets assume that we have what it takes to make our Bolts of Jute and continue on.

 Now that refinement is done, we move on to actually making the pieces of the armor! For a Bronze Chain Leggings Panel, we require (4) Bronze Ingot that we made two steps ago. Lets make that, and continue.

 Ah, something a bit trickier! We've made our Plates, which is a third of our pieces, so now we want to make the padding. As you can see, Bronze Chain Legging Lining requires (1) Bolt of Jute that we made two steps ago, but it also requires (3) Spool of Jute Thread. "What on earth is that!?," you may ask. Remember how we had to buy Lumps of Coal from the professions vendor? Well, Spools of Thread are the exact same thing, except for fabrics. Buy your stack of 10 Spool of Jute Thread and craft your Lining, and lets move to the next step!

 Insignias are the backbone behind adding bonuses to your stats.I'll explain that more later, but for here lets focus on the crafting aspect. To make our Mighty Jute Insignia we need (1) Bolt of Jute and (3) Vial of Weak Blood. Now, the first part you know how to make, but that second material is always something that you get from killing monsters (or as random loot sometimes). If you don't want to farm them, they can be bought from the auction house, but I warn you that gets mighty expensive! In our particular case, we need Blood, so lets assume during our adventures we killed enough creatures to get what we need and craft our final part of the armor!

With all of that done, we combine the three pieces and are rewarded with a brand spanking new armor to wear! Now, in order to make stronger armor, you will need to increase your profession level, and to do that you will need to craft more items. Now, don't be fooled, the fastest way to level is actually through the Discovery Pane. Yes, that scary top tab of the crafting station. "How does it work?" Easier than you might think.

In the case of the armor you just made, you would first need to Discover it in order to know what it takes, but for those less imaginative then others, that just means following the formula I first mentioned - Armor plate + Armor padding + Insignia = Armor. So, we made our Bronze Chain Legging Lining, our Bronze Chain Leggings Panel, and the Mighty Jute Insignia all based off of "known" recipes (those unlocked by leveling our crafting profession), and in turn those three items appear in the Discovery Pane. Place the three items into the slots on the right (I know, there are four slots, you don't need to fill them all so don't worry), and you'll notice the little text on bottom says "This looks like something! Craft the item to save the recipe." It will also tell you the Required level of your profession (in the case of the box being made in the picture, 100), and underneath each component of the build you will see the required number of those items needed ( number owned / number needed). After you click Craft on the bottom, the item is discovered, and you can build it from the normal menu instead.

So, pretty easy right? Now, a note on insignias: Each Insignia comes in three tiers: Simple (3 materials), Master (8 materials), and Rare (15 materials). Both simple and master level insignias are "known", where as the Rare level needs to be bought from the profession Vendor for Karma. When crafting things, as soon as the next tier of Insignia becomes available, you should start crafting that instead (for leveling purposes), with Rare level Items having its own Art style compared to the other insignias of that level).


Insignias
The how-to has already been covered on the insignias in the previous section. The purpose of this section is to elaborate the difference between the various insignias that can be crafted. How this format will be set up is pretty simple:

(Fabric material)

Insignia Name

required material

stats that receive bonuses

- -
You'll notice that I'm leaving out the exact number the stats receive - the reason for this is that it's not really necessary to know. The higher the tier of armor, and the larger the piece (chest is bigger than gloves), the higher the bonus attached. With that many variables, one only needs to know which stat is going to receive the bonus to plan around any particular build they might be thinking of! So then, lets begin the list!

Insignia navigation:
Set One
Set Two
Set Three

Set One
Jute

Malign	Tiny Venom Sac	Condition Damage
Mighty	Vial of Weak Blood	Power
Vital	Bone Chip	Vitality
Healing	Tiny Totem	Healing Power
Precise	Tiny Claw	Precision
Resilient	Tiny Scale	Toughness

Set Two
Wool / Cotton

Pillaging	Small Claw / Claw	Power + Magic Find
Ravaging	Small Venom Sac / Venom Sac	Condition Damage + Precision
Vigorous	Bone Shard / Bone	Power + Vitality
Hearty	Small Scale / Scale	Vitality + Toughness
Honed	Small Fang / Fang	Power + Critical Damage
Rejuvenating	Small Totem / Totem	Healing Power + Power
Strong	Vail of Thin Blood / Vial of Blood	Power + Precision

Set Three
Linen / Silk / Gossamer

Berserker's	Vail of Thick Blood / Vial of Potent Blood / Vial of Powerful Blood	Power + Precision + Critical Damage
Explorer's	Sharp Claw / Large Claw / Vicious Claw	Magic Find + Power + Precision
Knight's	Smooth Scale / Large Scale / Armored Scale	Toughness + Power + Precision
Valkyrie	Sharp Fang / Large Fang / Vicious Fang	Power + Critical Damage + Vitality
Cleric's	Engraved Totem / Intricate Totem / Elaborate Totem	Healing Power + Power + Toughness
Rampager's	Full Venom Sac / Potent Venom Sac / Powerful Venom Sac	Precision + Condition Damage + Power
Carrion	Heavy Bone / Large Bone / Ancient Bone	Condition Damage + Power + Vitality