Guild Wars 2 Inventory Space Management Guide

Guild Wars 2 Inventory Space Management Guide 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, 15 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 buy them from vendors in most starting areas.
• 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 if you have a second account (directy from the interface without using a mailbox).  Tyr Odinson (on post 51) tested this and calculated you can get 100 extra spots of storage this way.  Check out his post here:  http://www.guildwars…ap/page__st__50
• 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.

Part 2: Gem Store Upgrades vs 20-Slot Bags
As like any MMO, bags in GW2 get more expensive as you get better and better ones. Here is a table that lets you quickly see the scaling cost per inventory slot for each level of bag:

Note: (For a more detailed listing of how I calculated these numbers… go to http://gaiscioch.com…post_32754.html)

The Price of Bags

• Starter Backpack (20 new slots):  Free!
• 8-Slot Bags (32 new slots): 6 copper / slot
• 10-Slot Bags (8 new slots): 3.47 silver / slot
• 12-Slot Bags (8 new slots):  7.38 silver / slot
• 15-Slot Bags (12 new slots):  17.60 silver / slot
• 18-Slot Bags (12 new slots): 75 silver / slot
• 20-Slot Bags (8 new slots):  6 gold / slot

*These costs are assuming 8 slot packs are 50 copper and other packs sell for 1.5 times the cost of the rune

The Price of Gem Store Upgrades

• Extra Character Slot (80 new slots assuming 15 slot bags):  10 gems / slot
• Bank Tab Expansions (30 new slots): 20 gems / slot
• Extra Bag Slot (18 slots assuming 18 slot bags):  22.22 gems / slot   

When should you buy gem store upgrades instead of 20-slot bags?

• Extra Character Slots:  Buy When Gems are Cheaper than 100 gems = 57 gold
• Bank Tab Expansions:  Buy When Gems are Cheaper than 100 gems = 30 gold
• Extra Bag Slots: Buy When Gems are Cheaper than 100 gems = 24 gold

Note: I don’t think the price of 100 gems will reach 24 gold until at least a month after launch. If gems ever go over 57 gold per 100, that will probably be at least a couple months after launch. That means it will most likely be better to purchase gems for inventory upgrades instead of investing in 20 slot packs.

Edit:  Shayne Hawke created a rather epic Excel spreadsheet where you can input the current auction house price of bags.  It then tells you whether you should update your bag sizes or buy bag slots etc for EVERY type of bag.  Definitely worth checking out… Here is the Link: http://www.guildwars…ap/page__st__57

Part 3:  Adding Inventory By Purchasing Your Own Private Guildbank

We can be part of multiple guilds at once in Guildwars 2.  This means that you could create a dummy guild just for the sake of a guild bank.  While I think we should always represent our real guilds so that our task influence go to our guild, it is quite possible to buy the influence you need to purchase a guild bank.  Here are the breakdowns…

Cost of Hiring a Guild Promoter

• 10 influence for 10 silver
• 100 influence for 1 gold
• 1,000 influence for 10 gold
• 10,000 influence for 100 gold

Cost of adding a guild bank

• 500 influence to research Architecture Level 1
• 1,000 influence to research Architecture Level 2
• 1,000 influence to add a 50 slot guild bank  (requires level 2)
• 5,000 influence to research Architecture Level 3
• ??? influence to research Architecture Level 4
• 5,000 influence to add 100 additional slots to your guild bank (requires level 4)
• ??? influence to research Architecture Level 5
• 10,000 influence to add an additional 100 slots to your guild bank (requires level 5)

Analysis

This means that it will cost a mere 25 gold to add the first 50 slots to your personal guild bank.  That is about 50 silver per slot and is comparable to the jump from 15 slot packs to 18 slot packs.

While we don’t know right now how much architecture level 4 and 5 will cost, let’s assume that they are 10,000 and 20,000 respectively.  This means that the next 100 slots would be 200 gold or 2 gold a slot.  The final 100 would be 300 gold or 3 gold a slot.  Note that both of those are better deals than moving to 20 slot packs  (although using this route will probably take over a month of real life time).

I hope this helps!

– Jerich of Gaiscioch / Sanctum of Rall

P.S.  Thank you Shayne Hawke for pointing out a minor calculation error (which caused around a 10% error)!  I have modified the OP to reflect this.