Clarification on the crafting disciplines in Guild Wars 2.

There have been a number of discussions on different forums pertaining to the setup of Guild Wars 2 Crafting Disciplines. In all of these discussions I have found one common bit of misinformation that I wanted to clarify on this site for you guys. As you already know there are eight crafting disciplines in the game. (Be Sure to check out this amazing Guild Wars 2 Crafting Guide if you've not yet.) Of those eight disciplines you may have two active at any point in time. What active means is that you can have two disciplines of which you are currently using, crafting with or just have sitting on your character. Now – you can also have all eight disciplines on a single character. That is the basic information that I am sure you are already aware of.

The part that I see people misunderstanding with disciplines is how these carry from one character to the next. The correct answer is that they don't. Just because you can turn them off and on a character doesn't mean that they are on your other alternate characters as well. If you wanted to have all your disciplines leveled up to the maximum level and not have to deal with the fees involved with deactivating and reactivating them you would still have to have alternate characters to do that. What this does is create an incentive, albeit a small one, to create alternate characters for utilizing disciplines.

As the game is right now, based on the beta, you can have five characters per account – per server. So what does this mean? It means that you can have all eight disciplines covered using only four characters. That way you have a fifth character remaining if you choose to have a character in which you have no crafting disciplines at all. I think this is a great idea on ArenaNet's part because it allows for people to have a character where they can focus on one specific thing such as role-playing or even PvE and not feel like they have to spend any time devoted to crafting if they choose that route.

What does it cost to switch disciplines on a character in Guild Wars 2?

If you take a look at the wiki page for the Guild Wars 2 crafting disciplines there is a fee involved with deactivating and activating disciplines on the same character. It's actually not that substantial of an amount. Anything less than having your discipline max level will cost you 10 copper to reactivate. When you reach the maximum level of 400 for your discipline that price will then be increased to 40 silver. This is based on the wiki information as of July 28, 2012. If this changes I will make it a point to come back to this post and update it, or I'll write a new post detailing the new information.


There are a few benefits to having a system like this. When you do reach max level on your crafting disciplines you'll be making a substantial amount of money. If you choose to go this route you never have to level up a discipline on an alternate character. Based on the beta and how far most people were able to level up during it 10 copper was very little money to switch between disciplines. For instance look at the cost of gathering tools. The most basic gathering tools in the game cost 24 copper. When you look at the big picture spending 10 copper to activate and reactivate your disciplines is a drop of water in the ocean. When the cost ramps up to 40 silver at maximum level you will be using the best gathering tools available and those cost 40 silver. So, as you can see it is a little bit more expensive when you reach maximum level to activate and reactivate. Even at 40 silver I don't think it's going to be a substantial enough cost to warrant leveling up disciplines on a different character if you don't want to.

So as a quick recap. You can have all eight crafting disciplines covered on one character. Any two disciplines may be active at a time. There's a small fee to activate and deactivate them. Right now based on the wiki it says that a crafting discipline costs 10 copper to reactivate when it is not Max leveled. When you reach max level, which is 400, and then cost 40 silver to activate and reactivate them. Lastly, the most important thing, you do not share crafting disciplines across all of your characters. They are unique and if you would like to have a certain crafting discipline on a character other than your main you would need to level it up on that character as well.

Thank you for your time everyone and I will see you tomorrow!

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