A useful plan starts with a clear source.

Catalog provenance

The bundled catalog was fetched from ArenaNet on 2026-10-26T14:20:20.009Z, at game build 209026. It contains 13 starter projects, 29 selected recipes and 54 items. A repeatable API sync refreshes the catalog; it is not a manually maintained recipe import.

• Items API: Deldrimor Steel Ingot example
• Recipes API: ingredient quantities and discipline requirements
• Recipe search: alternate output recipes
• Trading Post price quotes
• Profession names and icons

How requirements are calculated

The planner combines demand for shared ingredients before rounding to full recipe batches. Owned finished components are consumed before expanding their ingredients. Each inventory quantity is used at most once across all selected projects. Extra items produced by batch rounding are shown as surplus.

Recipe coverage

For each supported output, the catalog selects the lowest-ID published recipe whose ingredients are all items. This makes the path reproducible; it does not make it the cheapest path or the only path. Recipes with non-item ingredients, Mystic Forge combinations absent from the API, currencies, vendor acquisition costs, recipe unlocks and cooldown scheduling are not modeled. Check the game and wiki before committing resources.

Price estimates

“Instant buy” uses the API’s lowest sell-listing unit price. “Buy order” uses the highest current buy-offer unit price. Both are multiplied by missing quantities. Market depth at each price, subsequent price movement and successful order filling are not guaranteed. Existing inventory is subtracted but not assigned an opportunity cost. The result is a purchase estimate, not a profit calculation.

Missing or zero quotes are excluded and explicitly counted. A partial subtotal is never presented as the total cost of a complete equipment upgrade. Refresh failures leave the last quote time visible.

Editorial references

The upgrade and getting-started pages are Sinistous planning advice, not official progression requirements. Profession summaries reference ArenaNet’s overview; general game guidance links to the new-player guide. For changing game details, use the official news and official wiki.