Guildwars 2 Inventory And You! - A Guide To Maximizing Inventory In GW2
By: Jerich
I always run out of inventory space in any MMO I play. The main problem is that I love to craft and quest and always have a ton of those items on hand. Here are some things I've found out about GW 2 to help me plan my storage space.
Starting Inventory
Account
- 30 shared bank slots
- Crafting Material / Cooking Material / Mini-Pet Storage... You can have 250 of each crafting item stored.
Per Character
- 20 slot starter backpack
- Four bag slots
- You can have up to 5 characters
Bags
Basics
- 4 slot bags can be purchased from vendors for 32 copper
- 8 slot bags can be made by crafters (tailor, leatherworker, armorsmith) with 20 tier 1 materials (jute scrap, rawhide scraps, copper ore)
- Each tier of crafting makes a higher quality bag (10 slots, 12 slots, 14 slots, etc). In addition to raw materials, these higher level bags require an increasingly expensive vendor item called runes of holding.
- 20 slot bags can be made at max level, and they require a superior rune of holding (10 gold) to make.
Specialty Bags
- All three professions can make invisible bags (which don't show up when selling to merchants)
- Tailors can make 8-20 slot Craftsman's Bags (New crafting materials are placed here first when looting)
- Leatherworkers can make 8-20 slot Oiled Leather Packs (Junk items are placed here first when looting)
- Armorsmiths can make 8-20 slot Reinforced Padded Equipment Boxes (Weapons and Armor Fill this bag First)
Gem Store Upgrades
Free Storage
- We start with 30 bank slots
- Each Character Starts with a starter pack and 4 bag slots (100 maximum slots)
- We can make 5 characters.
- That means we all have 530 free slots without using the cash store (which is a pretty decent number considering we have seperate storage for crafting ingredients in our bank and can send crafting items to the bank while on the field)
Bank Tab Expansion
- You can expand your bank 7 times for 600 gems each time
- Each expansion adds another 30 slots
- Since gems will most likely sell for 400 for $5.00, this each expansion will cost around $7.50.
- Each extra equpment slot bought this way is therefore 25 cents
Character Slot Expansion
- You can buy more character slots for 800 gems
- This is about $10.00 US currency
- If you assume you can easily get 20 slot packs, you can get 100 equipment slots this way.
- Each extra equipment slot bought this way is therefore 10 cents.
- Even if we factor in the high price of 20 slot bags and just use 8 slot bags, each slot is still only 19 cents a piece
Bag Slot Upgrade
- You can add an extra bag slot to a single character for 400 gems (Up to 3 times)
- This is about $5.00 US currency
- If you assume easy 20 slot packs, this is 25 cents a slot
- If you use 10 slot packs, this is 50 cents a slot
Tips to Maximizing Your Inventory on the Cheap
How to get by without extra bag slots even if you are a crafter
- Buying salvaging tools should be prioirty #1... Even if you don't craft, you will want to mine every ore node / chop down every tree you come across for experience and profit. You can get them in most starting areas off vendors.
- You can buy a crude salvage kit at many renowned heart vendor for a small karma price. Use these kits to break apart trash drops.
- Send any crafting material directly to your bank by right clicking on it and choosing (send to bank)
- You can quickly sell junk items to renowned heart vendors through the sell all junk items button.
- You can post any item you think will selll (crafting ingredients will sell really well until bots ruin the market) by directly opening up the trading house. I will write a guide on this later.
- You can also mail items directly to an alt from the interface without using a mailbox (bank alt, mule, etc)
- Using these steps, the default bag slots should be more than sufficient
Organizing your Bags
- Ideally, I will organize my bags this way... Starter Pack = Overflow and a space for my salvage kits
- Bag #1 Reinforced Padded Equipment Box... All my salvagable loot will come here for me to quickly break apart or sell on auction house
- Bag #2 Craftsman's Bag ... All crafting material will gather here for me to quickly righ click and send to bank.
- Bag #3 Invisible Bag ... My Extra gear (extra weapons / armor, buffs, etc) that I don't want to sell on accident will go here.
- Bag #4 Oiled Leather Pack ... Junk items will go here so I never have to sort through them.
Efficient Use of Gems
- Buy Character Slots First: If you find yourself running out of space... Your best bet is to make sure you are using all five of your character slots and then to buy more character slots
- First... this is the cheapest use of gems by far (10 cents per equipment slot compared to 25 cents for the other options)
- Second... It is quite possible that Arena Net will give each of your characters a birthday gift like they did in Guildwars 1. These are usually worth money and on a per character basis.
- Buy Extra Bank Slots Second: I would only buy bank slots if you find the 30 default slots too annoying. While not as good a deal as character slots, they are a quality of life issue and mean you won't have to mule as much.
- Buy Extra Bag Slots Last: These are not a good deal. I would only buy them if you find yourself running out of working space consistantly and even then only for your main characters.
I hope you all find this useful!
- Jerich
Note: I made this between BW 2 and 3. If anything changes, I will update it.