Economy and crafting decisions

Choose what to gather and make

Every crafted item has an opportunity cost: materials gathered personally could have been sold, saved for another recipe or used by another character. Start with an item you or your group will use, then compare its ingredient cost with the value of the finished item in your own market.

A gathering and crafting pair can reduce the need to buy a core material, but you may still need vendor goods, drops or another profession’s output. A player with two gathering professions can instead sell materials and buy finished equipment. Professions and crafting links each specialization of work.

For equipment, account for the character’s level and intended use. A useful upgrade for a current group member can be worth making even if it is not the best item to sell; a recipe that teaches skill but produces an unwanted item may be worth less than its ingredients.

Calculate a small batch

Suppose a hypothetical craft consumes materials you could sell for 80 silver and the finished item could sell for 1 gold. The apparent difference is 20 silver before auction fees, other inputs and the chance that the item does not sell. These numbers illustrate a calculation; they are not Forever prices.

Compare the cost of buying missing inputs, using materials already owned and the current value of the output. If the item needs several intermediate products, include their inputs once rather than counting both an intermediate and the materials used to make it.

Test a small batch before buying supplies for many crafts. Observe the actual selling price and whether goods move, then adjust the next batch. A listed asking price alone does not prove a sale, and prices can differ by realm and time.

Use recipe records carefully

The profession pages include recipe and material tabs. Use them to identify a possible supply chain and compare it with the recipes your character actually knows; look at the profession window for current requirements and output before committing materials.

The imported client build can associate abilities with reagents, which is useful evidence of ingredients. That association alone does not establish whether a recipe is currently learnable, who teaches it, its output quantity, skill-up rate or market value.

Keep materials for an immediate upgrade or planned group consumable separate from stock intended for sale. When a plan requires an ingredient gathered in a dangerous area or supplied by another player, include the travel and coordination effort in the decision.

Combine trade with progression

Gather while completing nearby quests and bank materials for a recipe you already intend to learn. Training, bag space, repairs and eventual riding all compete for money, so decide how much you can spend before buying a large stack.

The first Legacy point can also be earned by reaching 150 in a non-gathering primary profession, as an alternative to the character-level and exploration milestones. Pursue that only if the crafting investment suits your character; a point is not evidence that every intermediate craft will be profitable.