Greetings and ohai commander,
This guide is written with newer players and F2P in mind to help you, the player, avoid having an inventory that is constantly overflowing at the worst possible times. This guide covers the salvage system and the deposit all materials button in particular, as these are the two single best features the game has to avoid you being saddled with a full inventory mid-loot.

Note: bag, pack and box are used interchangeably in Guild Wars 2 as far as inventory management is concerned, they just indicate the type of materials that were used to make each (bags use cloth, packs use leathers, boxes use metals).

>1.0 Navigating between starting zones

>2.0 Your inventory and getting started
>>2.1 - Getting started
>>2.2 - Item quality
>>2.3 - Trophies
>>2.4 - Selling junk items (crucial)
>>2.5 - Using search and useful inventory searches
>>2.6 - Using the /wiki command

>3.0 Salvaging and depositing materials (crucial)
>>3.1 - Salvage kit types and uses
>>3.2 - Salvage options
>>3.3 - Depositing materials from the inventory
>>3.4 - Luck
>>3.5 - Unidentified gear

>4.0 Starting bags (recommended)

>5.0 Accessing your bank and the trading post
>>5.1 Overview
>>5.2 Access from the starting zones
>>5.3 Access from PvP areas
>>5.4 The gold value of your material storage

>6.0 Your second bags (10 slots) (optional)

>7.0 Your third bags (15 slots) (optional)

>8.0 Your fourth bags (18 slots) (recommended)

>9.0 Bonus: Easy 20 slot bags

>10.0 Bonus: Bag types
>>10.1 Standard Bags
>>10.2 Specialised Bags
>>10.3 Fractal Equipment Boxes
>>10.4 Equipment Pact Boxes and Marshal's Saddlebags
>>10.5 Pillager's Packs and Siegemaster's Satchels (WvW)
>>10.6 Ascended Bags (advanced, >20 slots)

>11.0 Bonus: Suggested bag composition

>12.0 Bonus: Equipment templates (loadouts)
>>12.1 Your second loadout and why you should use it
>>12.2 How to use equipment templates
>>12.3 Keybinding equipment and build templates

All characters no matter what level start with the first waypoint unlocked in each of the 5 races' starting zones and can teleport between them freely via the map (default hotkey: M). Waypointing cost scales with distance and character level.

Waypoints can be linked in chat by either holding ctrl and clicking them, which links them directly to your current chat, or holding shift and clicking them, which pastes them into the message you are currently typing.
From bottom left to top right, the starting zones: Metrica Province (asura), Caledon Forest (sylvari), Queensdale (human), Wayfarer Foothills (norn) & Plains of Ashford (charr).
The human starting waypoint, Shaemoor Waypoint (in-game chat code, can be sent in chat and then clicked upon to zoom to: [&BO8AAAA=] ).
The asura starting waypoint, Soren Draa Waypoint ( [&BEAAAAA=] ).
The sylvari starting waypoint, Astorea Waypoint ( [&BDQBAAA=] ).
The norn starting waypoint, Horncall Waypoint ( [&BHQBAAA=] ).
The charr starting waypoint, Smokestead Waypoint ( [&BIABAAA=] ).

>2.1 - Getting started
>2.2 - Item quality
>2.3 - Trophies
>2.4 - Selling junk items
>2.5 - Using search and useful inventory searches
>2.6 - Using the /wiki command

First, some quick options you should adjust at the beginning or at least be familiar with. Open your inventory (default hotkey I) and hit the cog to bring up the dialogue box pictured here:
If you have it switched off, I highly recommend you enable Show Rarity so you can tell items apart by quality. The other options are matters of personal preference, some players like Hide Bags in particular as an option to make their inventory look much neater and more seamless, I personally do not use this option as I like to use specialised bags and prefer having defined borders between each.
The Compact button gets rid of gaps in your inventory by moving items into the first available space in your bags (excluding shared inventory slots), prioritising top over bottom and then left over right. This button also condenses separate stacks of the same item if possible (does not exceed maximum inventory stack size for a given item, so, for example, 1 for weapons and armour, 250 for crafting materials and unidentified gear).

Items in Guild Wars 2 come in eight qualities, which are:

Vendor items, can be sold to vendors, sometimes for several silver or even gold.

Basic items, often salvageable.

Improved stats, often salvageable.

Improved stats, often salvageable. Loot with this quality and a sigil or rune will sometimes drop valuable upgrade crafting materials (best chance with a Runecrafter's Salvage-o-Matic). Medallions in this quality can be sold to vendors for ~1s.

Improved stats, often salvageable. Starting at (item) level 68 salvaging loot with this quality can yield ectoplasm, a valuable crafting material (best chance with a Master's Salvage Kit, Mystic Salvage Kit or Silver-Fed Salvage-o-Matic). Crests with this quality can be sold to vendors for ~2s or on the Trading Post for ~8s.

Improved stats, often salvageable. Starting at (item) level 68 salvaging loot with this quality can yield ectoplasm, a valuable crafting material (best chance with a Master's Salvage Kit, Mystic Salvage Kit or Silver-Fed Salvage-o-Matic). You can obtain gear up to this quality level easily from the Trading Post - or as loot, specific metas' rewards or crafting. Recommended minimum for Raids and other endgame content, including Strikes and the first twenty Fractals of the Mists.

Best in slot stats and can be stat swapped in the mystic forge, requires an ascended salvage kit to salvage. You can obtain gear with this quality level via crafting, rare drops (in for example WvWvW or Fractals of the Mists). Many ascended backpieces and a few trinkets can be obtained from achievements. Ascended trinkets and backpieces can also be obtained from many Living World maps using the map specific currency and Unbound or Volatile Magic. Can slot Agony Resistance infusions required for Fractals of the Mists starting at 21, by the time you reach 100 you will have needed to work up to a full set in order to (affordably) slot all the Agony Resistance you need. Account bound.

Best in slot stats and can be stat swapped for free out of combat. Account bound (can be slotted at will on different characters at the same time, as long as they can use the specified armour or weapon type, trinkets and back items work across all professions).

Trophy items are usually dropped during events or around certain Renown Hearts, the former of which can be handed in to the event NPC (denoted with an orange arrow pointed down to a bucket over their heads and on the minimap) while the event is active. The latter can be handed in to the corresponding Heart giver (denoted by a gold heart over their heads and on the minimap) to provide progress towards that Heart.
Pictured: Shiny Red Apples, an event trophy item, along with the event NPC (Farmhand Paris) and orange hand in symbol. The Renown Heart NPC can be seen in the background behind him with a partially filled heart over her head.

To rid yourself of junk items navigate to a vendor that sells items, for example a merchant (denoted by a pile of coins) and hit the sell junk button, as depicted below.


A useful function of GW2 is the search bar in your inventory, bank, material storage, wardrobe and crafting menus. Apart from using it to look for individual items by name, it can also find items by (some) keywords in their descriptions.

Typing in unidentified will display unidentified gear in your inventory, as expected. Likewise, typing in salvage will display both salvage kits and salvageable items.

Typing in consumable will display all consumables in your inventory, including foods, utility consumables, containers (including loot bags and unidentifieds), experience consumables, salvage kits and so on. Typing in open will display items such as loot bags.

If anything is unclear to you in the game you can type /wiki <query> in the chat window and hit enter to open the corresponding Guild Wars 2 Wiki page in your web browser. You can type your query manually or shift click an item to enter its code and look it up directly. This is a good way to see if an item you have your inventory will be useful to you in future.

>3.1 - Salvage kit types and uses
>3.2 - Salvage options
>3.3 - Depositing materials from the inventory
>3.4 - Luck
>3.5 - Unidentified gear

In Guild Wars 2 salvaging is the most crucial way to avoid a clogged inventory. Standard merchants offer different levels of items including salvage kits depending on their level. The window below on the left shows what a standard merchant in a starting zone provides, the window on the right shows what is available from high level merchants one can find in a capital city or hub.
Salvage kits come in several qualities as you can see. The ones relevant to efficient salvaging are:

1. The Basic Salvage Kit[wiki.guildwars2.com] (equivalent to the Copper-Fed Salvage-o-Matic[wiki.guildwars2.com]) - use this one on white (basic) and blue (fine) gear, as well as yellows (rares) and oranges (exotics) that are below (item) level 68 and not worth at least a few silver on the Trading Post. Basic Salvage Kits have 25 charges; the Copper-Fed Salvage-o-Matic has unlimited charges but requires 800 gems. It is probably the single best gem store purchase as far as convenience goes and a great candidate for a Shared Inventory slot, but if you buy enough Basic Salvage Kits whenever you know you'll be getting a lot of drops on a character (e.g. running Fractals or open-world map metas like Silverwastes, Auric Basin or Dragonfall) you'll be okay too. I recommend having 4-5 Basic Salvage Kits on you for endgame open world (or instanced) content and restocking whenever you come across a merchant.
   
2. Runecrafter's Salvage-o-Matic[wiki.guildwars2.com] - an optional gem store purchase that will sometimes give you some extra materials when salvaging (green) masterwork gear. Has infinite charges. If you own one, use it to salvage greens. If you do not own a Runecrafter's Salvage-o-Matic, either a) sell your greens on the Trading Post (you can do this from anywhere though as F2P you may be restricted in which gear you can sell), this will net you almost the same coin value as using a Runecrafter's on the same items, or b) if you need the space, salvage your greens using a Basic Salvage Kit or Copper-Fed Salvage-o-Matic. This will give a bit less total value than using a Runecrafter's or selling your greens directly to the Trading Post, but it's what I did for years as I couldn't be bothered selling each green individually and I didn't have a Runecrafter's.
   
3. Master's Salvage Kit[wiki.guildwars2.com] (equivalent to the Mystic Salvage Kit[wiki.guildwars2.com] and the Silver-Fed Salvage-o-Matic[wiki.guildwars2.com]) - use this on rares above level 68 and exotics above level 68 that are worth around ~1 ectoplasm on the Trading Post if you need Globs of Dark Matter. Master's Salvage Kits have 25 charges, Mystic Salvage kits have 250 and the Silver-Fed Salvage-o-Matic has infinite. I personally do not recommend buying the Silver-Fed Salvage-o-Matic off the gem store at all as Mystic Salvage Kits exist and can be generated using the without spending any gems (see below). I recommend having 1-2 Master's Salvage Kits on you for endgame open world (or instanced) content and restocking whenever you come across a merchant.
   
4. Black Lion Salvage Kits[wiki.guildwars2.com] - unlike the other salvage kits, a Black Lion Salvage Kit will salvage gear without destroying its upgrades. Generally you want to use these on an exotic (orange) gear with a valuable sigil or rune (look the sigil or rune up on the Trading Post to see what it's worth), then either sell or keep said sigil or rune depending on whether you want it or the gold. Back in the day my general rule of thumb was to use a Black Lion Salvage Kit on anything worth ~1 gold and up, but as you play for a long time you will eventually end up with a lot of these kits and could probably go lower, say by half. These kits are also a good way to preserve sigils and runes you applied to gear that you're replacing with another stat or ascended. This kit is generally not worth using on anything below orange (exotic) in quality. I generally don't recommend buying these off the gem store at all either as you can get them semi-regularly from Chests of Black Lion Goods[wiki.guildwars2.com] and frequently from Achievement Point Reward Chests starting at 1000AP.[wiki.guildwars2.com]

The Mystic Salvage Kit:
The Mystic Forge[wiki.guildwars2.com] recipe for Mystic Salvage Kits is as follows: 3 Mystic Forge Stones, 1 Fine Salvage Kit (blue), 1 Journeyman's Salvage Kit (green) and 1 Master's Salvage Kit (yellow). To access the Mystic Forge you need to enter Lion's Arch, as F2P this will require hitting level 35. As mentioned, this kit is simply a Master's Salvage Kit with 250 uses. Mystic Forge Stones[wiki.guildwars2.com] are obtained in large amounts from Achievement Point Reward Chests and occasionally from Chests of Black Lion Goods. They do have another use in attempting to roll Legendary precursors in the Mystic Forge using exotics, though I prefer to use them for Mystic Salvage Kits.

Extractors:
Extractors are not technically salvage kits, but are worth mentioning as they allow you to extract upgrades or infusions without destroying the gear they are on. Upgrade Extractors are the rarer of the two and sometimes drop from Black Lion Chests or can be bought for Black Lion Statuettes (probably not recommended), so you may earn some over time if you farm Black Lion Keys. Infusion Extractors can be bought from the Fractal vendor INFUZ-5959[wiki.guildwars2.com] for 24 silver each if you have the Follows Advice mastery unlocked (the first mastery in the Fractal Attunement mastery track). An Infusion Extractor can be used to extract infusions from ascended gear without destroying them, but it will not extract upgrades like sigils and runes.

When you right-click on a salvage kit you will be presented with several options:
These options will salvage all the specified qualities - fine (blue) and lower, masterwork (green) and lower or all rares (yellow) - in your inventory, they will never salvage gear that is in an Invisible Bag, Invisible Pack or Safe Box, nor will they salvage gear that is in your shared inventory, bank or guild bank (even if you have those windows open as your are salvaging). Closing your inventory will interrupt any salvaging that is in progress. Dyes will be salvaged too, so use, sell (trading post) or store (invisible bag or bank) the ones you don't want to lose.

I will cover this again in my unidentified gear section, but I generally recommend selecting: salvage all fine and lower on your Basic Salvage or Copper-Fed -> salvage all masterwork and lower on your Runecrafter's (or Copper-Fed) -> salvage all rares on your Master's, Mystic or Silver-Fed.

>3.1 - Salvage kit types and uses
>3.2 - Salvage options
>3.3 - Depositing materials from the inventory
>3.4 - Luck
>3.5 - Unidentified gear

The ability to deposit materials remotely into your material storage often goes overlooked by newer players and goes hand in hand with salvaging in avoiding a clogged inventory.
With one simple button press you can deposit all crafting materials from your inventory into your material storage from anywhere in Tyria. This is especially useful after gathering from resource nodes or after salvaging, as the vast majority of materials you obtain from these will cease occupying your inventory and instead appear neatly in storage.

Your material storage can be accessed later from your bank (left) or a crafting station (right) by clicking on the grid symbol, as shown below. This will be covered in more detail in the accessing your bank section of this guide.


An extra tip I have is, if one of your material storage categories has a full stack in it (so depositing materials doesn't work anymore for that resource), take the stack out and put it in your regular bank instead (you can access your regular bank via a crafting station too!). This lets you keep depositing more of that material into your material storage while the full stack sits on your bank.

Luck will appear in your inventory after salvaging and can be dealt with by right-clicking and selecting Consume All. Looted luck comes in four qualities, so you may need to do this four times:

Unidentified gear is very common at level 80 and it is recommended you always identify this gear first (right-click -> Use All) then salvage it, as doing so will grant you more materials on average plus skins and a decent chance for loot of a higher rarity. However: you may not want to identify this gear until you are at your bank, as identifying it will provide regular gear which does not stack. Unidentified gear comes in three qualities - fine, masterwork and rare:

I usually:

1. Identify fine (blue) unidentified gear
   
2. Hit salvage all fine and lower on my Copper-Fed - or Basic Salvage kits
   
3. Identify all masterwork (green) unidentified gear
   
4. Hit salvage all masterwork and lower on my Runecrafter's - or Copper-Fed or Basic Salvage kits
   
5. Identify all rare (yellow) unidentified gear
   
6. Hit salvage all rares and lower on my Mystic - or Master's Salvage kit
   
7. Click deposit all materials on my inventory

This ensures I don't accidentally salvage unidentified gear and also that I don't need extra bag slots as a B2P player. Step 7 can be done inbetween quality levels too if you need the space. Step 5 into Step 6 can be done out of order from identifying/salvaging blues -> greens as the salvage all rares option doesn't have any effect on lower quality gear, sometimes I do this first if I need the space taken up by non-stackable rare loot in my inventory. In many metas you accumulate green unidentifieds faster than blues and yellows, so identifying, salvaging and depositing the latter two rarities first can help you avoid overflow.

Obviously, this process can be more or less difficult depending on how much space you have to work with, you may need to use alt + drag on your unidentified gear stacks to split them and put some in your bank while you identify and salvage smaller amounts at a time (in particular as F2P). As B2P you can use your shared inventory for this too, as unidentified gear in your shared inventory slots will not be salvaged even when using Salvage all. Invisible Bags, Invisible Packs and Safe Boxes are another option for this as B2P, as items within won't be salvaged (but watch out for identified gear getting deposited in these bags once the rest of your inventory is full).

As B2P I recommend opening the Black Lion Trading Company (default O), navigating down to the Trading Post and then selecting the Inventory Bags category, as depicted:
You can then either sort by name and scroll down, search by typing in 8 slot or hit the cog and adjust the bag size filter to 8 to find the cheapest bags on the TP:
Assuming you are a new player, I recommend buying four of these as soon as possible. If you already have some gold, you can skip to 10, 15 or 18 slots depending on how much gold you are willing and able to spend on bags:

• 4x08 slot bags will put you back around 1.2 silver buy instantly.
  
• 4x10 slot bags will put you back around 60 silver buy order or 1.2 gold buy instantly.
  
• 4x15 slot bags will put you back around 3.2 gold buy order or 4.0 gold buy instantly.
  
• 4x18 slot bags will put you back around 8 gold buy order or 11 gold buy instantly.

You can buy items from the TP from anywhere in the world, but to pick up your items you will need to go to a Black Lion Delivery Agent. As B2P you can also enter racial capital cities right from the start (F2P players need to be level 10), so you can simply enter the zone portal near your/a racial starting waypoint and find your way to the nearest BLTC agent in the city. BLTC NPCs are usually situated near bank NPCs and have the following symbol above them:
This is covered in greater detail in the accessing your bank and the trading post section of my guide.

As F2P you're a bit more limited as far as the cheapest starting bags go, as you can't buy 8 slot bags off the Trading Post but can buy 10 slots (which costs more). As such, I recommend buying either 4 slot leather bags off a standard merchant in the mean time - or you can buy 5 slot bags from some special merchants (such as the two near Shaemoor Waypoint in the human starting zone):

>4.1 Overview and selecting which crafting discipline
>4.2 Step-by-Step

While I do not recommend this over buying bags off the Trading Post which is the much cheaper option, if you are F2P and really want 8 slot bags instead of 4-5 slots you can obtain bags via crafting. For this you have a choice of three crafting disciplines: armoursmithing (heavy armour), leatherworking (medium armour) and tailoring (light armour). Note: As you can switch between crafting disciplines without losing progress with a fee based on your level in the discipline you are switching to, you may want to go for the one with the cheapest bags (or whichever one you already have the materials for).
At present (September 2022) the 8 Slot Rawhide Leather Pack from the leatherworking discipline is the cheapest option, requiring 10 Stretched Rawhide Leather Square (which can be bought off the TP or crafted from 20 Rawhide Leather Section) totalling around 5 silver in materials bought from the TP (per bag you craft).

The 8 Slot Reinforced Bronze Box from armoursmithing requires 10 Bronze Ingot (which can be bought off the TP or crafted from 20 Copper Ore & 2 Lump of Tin bought from an armoursmith Master Craftsman NPC at 80c for 10 or off the TP) totalling around 11 silver.

The 8 slot Jute Bag from tailoring requires 10 Bolt of Jute (which can be bought off the TP or crafted from 20 Jute Scrap) totalling around 13 silver. Selling these bags is not profitable when you consider the cost of the materials put into making them, which is why I do not recommend this method.

However, if you need to farm the materials yourself armoursmithing is likely the easiest option, as you can obtain the materials from buying a copper pick at a merchant (or by receiving one as a level up reward) and mining copper nodes along with buying 1 batch of tin for 80c from the armoursmith Master Craftsman NPC, whereas tailoring and leatherworking require you to salvage looted armour to earn the necessary materials.

This section uses the tailoring discipline as an example of how to craft these bags, though I recommend you check the material prices again before you begin - or consider which materials will be easiest to gather as mentioned above. The main difference between the disciplines in this instance is how the bags are named and which materials they use, as mentioned in the overview.

To begin, navigate your way to a Master Craftsman NPC using your map (default M) or minimap. In the starting zones these NPCs can be found near the bank hub in each zone (this is covered by the accessing your bank and the trading post section of my guide). Alternatively you can enter a racial capital city to find them, which can be done immediately as B2P and at level 10 for F2P.
Crafting NPCs are generally stationed together and can be identified by their title (Master Leatherwork, Master Armoursmith or Master Tailor), along with an icon on the minimap and above their heads. Master Leatherworks are identified by hides, Master Armoursmiths by a shield with an embossed hammer and Master Tailors by a pair of scissors. To learn their discipline, simply interact with them and select "Please teach me to be a <discipline>"
To open the crafting menu, interact with the crafting table near to the corresponding NPC for that discipline. This will bring up the interface shown above, where you can navigate starting recipes specific to your discipline by scrolling, using the search bar or applying filters by clicking the cog symbol beneath production. Clicking the magnifying glass shown above will give you a breakdown of what materials are required to craft a specific sub-component, opening the window shown below (left).
You can right click a component or material's icon to bring up the option to buy it from the Trading Post, which will then take you directly to the material's TP page when left-clicked, as shown in the image right. The crafting interface has two additional, useful features, namely the ability to access and withdraw from your bank or your material storage shown below.
While this is not necessary for crafting, as the interface will draw directly from your material storage and bank, it is a good way to move gear in and out or transfer overflowing materials from the material storage to the bank.

Not only do your disciplines save your progress even when you switch them out, they also grant your character experience when producing items (levelling a single profession from 0 to 400 yields around 7 levels worth of experience, however items made at higher levels can get quite expensive).

>5.1 Overview
>5.2 Access from the starting zones
>5.3 Access from PvP areas
>5.4 The gold value of your material storage

As B2P the easiest way to access your bank, material storage, crafting stations and the TP is by entering a capital city, the entrance portal being found near to the starting waypoint for each race.

As F2P you will either need to be level 10 to do the above or you will need to navigate to the hub in each starting zone, as will be described in this section of the guide.

As mentioned previously, new characters of each race have the starting waypoints for all other races unlocked too by default, allowing them to teleport between starting zones (see section 1.0).

Note: The Trading Post can only be accessed from a capital city or from the human starting zone, Queensdale.

Each starting zone has a hub with crafting stations, bank access and low level merchants. Bank NPCs are identified by a circle contaning a coin purse, TP delivery agents by a circle containing a set of scales.

The human starting zone hub can be found south from the Village of Shaemoor in the Township of Claypool (in-game chat code, can be sent in chat and then clicked upon to zoom to: [&BPYAAAA=] ). Along the road from Shaemoor to Claypool you can find a TP agent southwest from Scaver Waypoint, across the bridge:

The asura starting zone hub can be found northeast from Soren Draa by following the roads past Obscura Incline and Loch Jezt to Desider Atum ( [&BEgAAAA=] )

The sylvari starting zone hub can be found north from the Village of Astorea across the bay at Mabon Market ( [&BDoBAAA=] )

The norn starting zone hub can be found north from Snowlord Gate (Horncall Waypoint) in the Icesteppes (Twinspur Haven Waypoint: [&BH0BAAA=] )

The charr starting zone hub can be found southeast from the Village of Smokestead in the Ashford Forum ( [&BIQBAAA=] )

An alternative available to all, B2P, and F2P starting at level 3, is to enter the sPvP lobby by hitting the crossed swords sPvP icon on the top left of your screen.
This will open the PvP interface shown below, where you can hit Enter PvP Lobby, allowing you to teleport to the PvP lobby shown, where both a bank NPC and a Black Lion delivery agent can be located on the minimap near to the entrance.

Entering World versus World works too, but as F2P you won't unlock this until level 60 - and your as both B2P and F2P your current WvW participation level will also decay while you are idle in WvW. To bring up the WvW panel click the castle tower icon on the top left of your screen (default hotkey B). WvW contains many useful merchants, some of which even have their gold prices discounted but require Badges of Honour to compensate (standard WvW currency, easy to earn).

I thought it is worth mentioning here that your material storage can be a great source of gold - over a few months of playing Guild Wars 2 you can easily have hundreds of gold worth of materials in there from gathering to sell to the TP or save up for crafting endgame gear. I heartily recommend gw2efficiency.com for this, the website is great for seeing both the value of your material storage (total & broken down by category and individual material stacks) and for seeing the difference between what you have and what you need to craft specific ascended or legendary gear.

Optional: if you have the gold saved up (for example from doing your dailies, or dungeons) or don't feel you need the extra slots yet, you can skip straight to the 15 slots and/or 18 slots sections of this guide.

For a detailed discussion on buying off the TP, read the Starting bags (B2P) section of my guide. This goes for F2P too, however prior to level 10 F2P players need to access the TP delivery agent near Scaver Plateau in Queensdale (discussed in the Accessing your bank and the trading post section of the guide). After level 10 F2P players can access the TP agents in capital cities, same as B2P.

B2P: 4x10 slot bags will put you back around 60 silver buy order or 1.2 gold buy instantly.
F2P: 2x10 slot bags will put you back around 30 silver buy order or 0.6 gold buy instantly.

To get started, open the Black Lion Trading Company menu depicted by a Lion's head on the upper left of your screen (default hotkey O) and navigate down to the Trading Post:
Once in the TP menu, go to inventory bags and either hit the cog to filter for 10 slot bags, enter the search term 10 slot or search directly for 10 Slot Thin Leather Pack. As F2P, the latter is the only 10 slot bag option available to you to buy off the TP directly, as B2P you have a broader choice including specialised bags (covered in the Bag type section of this guide).

You have two choices here, either place a buy order (I recommend outbidding the last buy order by 1c to expedite matters, especially if it is a large order) or buy instantly from a sell order. The former will save you currency but may take time (especially for the specialised bag types covered later in the guide) and you may need to cancel then relist you order if you get outbid, requiring you to go to a TP agent to pick up your gold; the latter, buy instantly, will save you time but is obviously more expensive.

In either case, once the transaction is fulfilled you will see a red indicator by the BLTC icon on your UI and will need to head to a delivery agent to collect your items.

Note: As you upgrade your bags, don't throw the old ones away - you can transfer them to an alt via your bank or resell them on the TP (if you bought them as a buy order you will even break even or generate a little profit from doing this, if you bought them at the sell price you will likely lose a little currency overall due to seller's fees).

Again, this step is optional if you'd prefer to progress directly to the last bag set I recommend.

B2P: 4x15 slot bags will put you back around 3.2 gold buy order or 4 gold buy instantly.
F2P: 2x15 slot bags will put you back around 2 gold buy order or 2.6 gold buy instantly.

B2P is at an advantage here in terms of price per bag as B2P can buy the cheaper 15 Slot Linen Bag or Darksteel Box whereas F2P must buy the 15 Slot Rugged Leather Pack.

Nonetheless, compared with other bag tiers you get some really good bang for your buck as far as slot count and price point goes, and again you can resell old bags or transfer them to alts via your bank.

Note: As you upgrade your bags, don't throw the old ones away - you can transfer them to an alt via your bank or resell them on the TP (if you bought them as a buy order you will even break even or generate a little profit from doing this, if you bought them at the sell price you will likely lose a little currency overall due to seller's fees).

These are my personal favourite bags in the game as far as price and convenience goes.

B2P: 4x18 slot bags will put you back around 8 gold buy order or 11 gold buy instantly.
F2P: 2x18 slot bags will put you back around 4 gold buy order or 5.5 gold buy instantly.

F2P and B2P have the same price per bag here, as F2P can buy all the same standard 18 slot bags that B2P can. B2P players can also buy specialised bags, some of which are decent QoL.
The 18 Slot Mithril Box, 18 Slot Silk Bag and 18 Slot Thick Leather Pack are all functionally identical as far as bags go, they differ solely in price point so I recommended finding the cheapest and getting that (the TP overview displays the instant buy price, for the current buy order price you will need to open each entry manually).

Obviously as F2P you will still find your inventory a big tighter and more micro intensive than it is for B2P players (who have four bag slots by default), especially if you start getting deep into fractals where imo 5 bag slots will make your life much, much easier, especially at higher tiers, but as a B2P Guild Wars 2 player since launch I've never felt the need to go beyond 18 slot bags, nor felt the need to purchase extra bag slots outside of luxury - especially since the update that introduced unidentified gear, which condensed much of the random loot one used to get at level 80 by being stackable.

Apart from the free 20 slot bags you can get from some sources, I gear all my PvE characters with 18 slot bags as they are much cheaper than larger bag types (20 slot bags will cost you ~10g per bag, be it from the TP or crafted).

In addition to the above, there are several easy to obtain 20 slot bags in the game, including:

• 5 20 slot bags can be obtained for free from Living World Season 1 (B2P and F2P, starting at level 80 in the Story Journal) by completing the final chapter of each episode.
  
• Bandit Coin Purse - B2P and F2P, obtained from the Bandit Weapons Specialist[wiki.guildwars2.com] collection achievement, requiring you to unlock all the Bandit weapons skins. These can be bought cheaply off the TP, crafted or bought off a WvWvW Karma Trader (price is cheaper the lower your character's level). The collection is unlocked by buying the Bandit Combat Journal off Quartermaster Seppa in the Silverwastes for 10 silver and 150 Bandit Crests (earned in the Silverwastes).
  
• Halloween Pail & Large Wintersday Gift - B2P and F2P, can be obtained for free from Halloween and Wintersday and their respective holidays' rewards tracks in sPvP. Generally not worth buying using Candy Corn Cobs or Snow Diamonds.
  
• Simple Olmakhan Bandolier - B2P PoF + LWS4E2, obtained from completing the final chapter of Living World Season 4 Episode 2, A Bug in the System. Can be upgraded to 24, then 28, then finally 32 slots via the Lasting Bonds[wiki.guildwars2.com] achievement collections. Another 32 slot bag can be earned via the Seasons of the Dragons[wiki.guildwars2.com] achievements (B2P + at least 16 episodes from LWS2 through 5).
  
• Uncanny Jar - B2P and F2P, obtained from the Uncanny Canner[wiki.guildwars2.com] collection achievement, which requires a bit of travelling but is very cheap.

>10.1 Standard Bags
>10.2 Specialised Bags
>10.3 Fractal Equipment Boxes
>10.4 Equipment Pact Boxes and Marshal's Saddlebags
>10.5 Pillager's Packs and Siegemaster's Satchels (WvW)
>10.6 Ascended Bags (advanced, >20 slots)

Standard bags are of the basic (white) rarity and are generally not bound, meaning you can move them between alts using your bank or resell them on the trading post.

As discussed in the previous section, some 20 slot bags can be earned from achievement collections (some F2P, some B2P), some specific living world episodes (including all of season 1 for F2P and B2P alike), and some festivals.

Specialised bags are of the fine (blue) rarity and are generally not bound, meaning you can move them between alts or resell them on the trading post. These bags ignore inventory sorting via the Compact button.

These bags otherwise work like normal bags and will fill normally if the bags above them are full, but if the bags above them are not full they prioritise picking up certain types of loot depending on which type of specialised bag they are. Buy orders for these bags tend to take longer to fulfill than buy orders for standard bags.

The most common varieties of specialised bags break down into the following types:

Craftsman's Bag: Crafting materials and upgrade components that drop will fill these bags first if slots are available. In my opinion these are the most useless variety of bag as crafting materials can always be deposited directly into your material storage using the Deposit All Materials button discussed in Salvaging and depositing materials (part two). The one big exception to this is if you want upgrade components such as sigils and runes you acquire to appear in one place, however they will be competing with crafting materials for these slots.

Equipment Box: Weapons and armour that drop will fill these bags first if slots are available. I like these as an alternative to standard bags, especially if you have bag slots to spare, although the fact equipment boxes are not affected by the Compact button is a downside.

Oiled Pack: Junk items will fill these bags first if slots are available. I find it handy to have one of these just to keep junk items separate from the rest of your drops, but these bags are entirely a matter of personal preference.

Invisible Bag: (also: Invisible Pack & Safe Box): Items in these bags will not show up on sell to vendors lists, will not be salvaged when using salvage all options on a salvage kit and crafting items within these bags will not deposit when using 'deposit all' (you can still right-click crafting material stacks and order them to be deposited). These are incredibly useful and versatile bags for storing precious loot or spare equipment, I recommend equipping at least one of these bags. Note: when all other bags are full, loot and materials will start to fill this bag like it's a regular bag, so this may require a little extra micromanagement, but it's still practical to have one of these to make sure you don't accidentally sell or salvage items you want to keep.

Fractal Equipment Boxes are 20 Slot Equipment Boxes that have the same rarity as the corresponding rarity they sort for: uncommon (green), rare (yellow) or exotic (orange). These bags are account bound and are generally purchased from the vendor BUY-4373[wiki.guildwars2.com] in the Fractals of the Mists (endgame PvE dungeons) for Fractal Relics (standard Fractal currency) + gold. Functionally, these are identical to an Equipment Box (ie you cannot Compact them) but with rarity sorting on top. This can be useful for separating out exotic weapons and armour you loot, I'd recommend getting one if any.

I'll be honest, I don't have any experience with the Equipment Pact Box. From what I understand they are rare bags that require armoursmithing, leatherworking or tailoring 400 and are 20 slots, but with the major caveat that they are soulbound, not account bound, meaning you cannot even transfer them between characters. Apparently they combine the functionality of equipment boxes and invisible bags, but as they are soulbound and you generally want to salvage or sell (TP) most weapons and armour you loot (not hide them in an invisible bag) I do not recommend these at all, ever. They also require a Superior Rune of Holding for 10g from a Master Craftsman.

An Equipment Pact Box can be upgraded into a Marshal's Saddlebag. Marshal's Saddlebags are ascended bags that have the same functionality as Equipment Pact Boxes but have >20 slots and are account bound. Crafting them is very expensive (over 30g including the Pact Equipment Box needed in the recipe for 1x24 slots, over 80g for 1x28 and over 200g for 1x32). Marshal's bags are account bound, but as again, you generally want to salvage or sell most weapons and armour you loot, instead of them automatically landing in an invisible bag, I recommend Boreal bags as they are cheaper to make.

Pillager's Packs and Siegemaster's Satchels are bags bought from a (WvW) Outfitter[wiki.guildwars2.com] and cost Badges of Honour (standard WvW currency) + gold. Pillager's Packs are functionally identical to standard bags, Siegemaster's Satchels are specialised bags that prioritise consumables such as food, utility consumables and siege blueprints.

Both these bag types come in 18 slot rare or 20 slot exotic variants. Their gold cost is lower than that of equivalent 18 or 20 slot bags at 1.5 and 7g respectively. You will first need to unlock the Provisions Masters WvW ability in the last tab of the WvW interface (default hotkey B) in order to buy these from an Outfitter in WvW.

Note: F2P players must reach level 60 on any character in order to access WvW.

Bags with >20 slots are of the pink (ascended) rarity and are account bound, meaning you can move them between alts using your bank. Apart from two that are available from achievements and briefly mentioned in the Cheap 20 Slot Bags section, these are obtained via crafting and are very expensive at over 30g each for 24 slots, over 80g for 28 and over 200g for 32. Boreal bags (from LWS5: The Icebrood Saga) work out slightly cheaper at over 30g for 24 slots, over 60g for 28 and over 140g for 32).

Ascended Bags come in standard and specialised varieties too, corresponding to their non-ascended equivalents.

Standard ascended bags:

• 24, 28 and 32 Slot Gossamer Saddlebag
  
• 24, 28 and 32 Slot Hardened Leather Pannier
  
• 24, 28 and 32 Slot Orichalcum Locker
  
• 24 Slot Simple Boreal Canteen, 28 Slot Sturdy Boreal Duffel, 32 Slot Reinforced Boreal Trunk

Specialised ascended bags:
Craftsman's:

• Cowrie League Saddlebag

Equipment:

• Nomad's Locker

Oiled:

• Hamaseen Pannier

Invisible:

• Courier's Locker
  
• Courier's Pannier
  
• Courier's Saddlebag

F2P:

• Starter backpack
  
• 18 slot bag
  
• 18 slot bag

B2P:

• Starter backpack
  
• 18 slot bag
  
• 18 slot bag
  
• 18 slot oiled bag
  
• 18 slot invisible bag

B2P:

• Starter backpack
  
• 18 slot equipment box
  
• 18 slot equipment box
  
• 18 slot oiled bag
  
• 18 slot invisible bag

>12.1 Your second loadout and why you should use it
>12.2 How to use equipment templates
>12.3 Keybinding equipment and build templates

Each character starts with two of these, even as F2P. While these are overpriced as far as gems go, especially relative to the fact you get two per new character slot (which costs 800 gems off sale versus the 1000 gems two equipment storage templates cost off sale), and you can transfer ascended gear (and some exotic sets) between alts via your bank, the second template you start with can save you up to 16-19 eighteen inventory spaces.

Note: Build templates and equipment templates are specific to a character, they are not account-wide. Buying more does not unlock more for all the characters on your account, only the character you apply them to.

To access these, open your hero panel (default hotkey H). You should see the interface depicted below on the left:
From there, you can navigate to your equipment templates by selecting the equipment tab. This will show you the window on the right. The numbers along the top of the window can be hovered over to show you a stat breakdown of the gear you currently have equipped in that tab (if you do not have anything equipped in the tab you are hovering over, the stat breakdown will not appear). Some gear needs to have its stats selected by right-clicking it and selecting the Customise option. This needs to be done for each piece of stat selectable gear. This type of gear can be equipped even without selecting stats however, which may lead to you wearing statless gear.
Left-clicking these numbers will bring up and activate the equipment set stored within; right-clicking these numbers allows you to rename or copy and paste an equipment set over another template (overwritten gear that is not also currently in use by another set will be moved automatically into your inventory when you do this).

You can equip gear to a loadout from your bags or by using the grid display on the left side of the hero panel, which can be narrowed down to filter by slot type (head, shoulders, mainhand, offhand, amulet, ring etcetera) by clicking on a given slot - pictured right we have the mainhand of the character's secondary weapon set selected, so the game is showing us the mainhand and twohanded weapons we have available. Selecting by slot type has the added use of only displaying upgrade components relevant to that slot, so sigils for weapons and runes for armour.

Chain-link symbol:
Any item with a chain-link symbol is currently in use in another equipment template. Equipping it to your active template will not unequip it from other templates, however you can right-click a piece of equipment to bring up the option to unequip it from all templates if you so desire.

Golden chain-link symbol:
Any item with a golden chain-link symbol is a Legendary item and can be equipped freely to equipment templates on any character that is able to wear or use items of this type.

Note for B2P with level 80 boosted characters: For B2P who have boosted a profession to level 80, you can safely store your boosted armour set in one loadout, as Celestial gear (all stats) is quite valuable to have spare, and experiment with another armour set with different stats in the other.

Extremely useful tip: You can assign a keybinding to individual build and equipment tabs to cycle between them fast, the same way you can keybind individual mounts and mastery abilities (fishing, skiffs). I personally bind my build and equipment tabs to neighbouring keys on the numpad for extremely easy role switching.