Guild Wars 2: Effective Level 8

 I’m enjoying playing my Norn Warrior.  She actually had a one year birthday recently, for which I got a nice in game email and some in game rewards such as extra xp.  I created the character and didn’t play her, but now Guild Wars 2 is in my pleasant MMO rotation so I’m advancing the character, though slowly.

Character Level

I have many questions about the game, the top one being what the heck is my character’s actual level.  Her character sheet says she is Level 21, Effective Level 8.  I keep seeing her Health amount going up and down and I’m assuming that is just putting me at the same level as other players in the area working on the same Public Events stuff.

Crafting

I found the bank in Hoelbrak and stuffed all of my crafting ingredients in it.  I can’t decide which crafts to pick up and haven’t found an online guide yet that tells me what each requires and suggests good choices for each class.

The obvious thought for a Warrior would be Weaponsmithing or Armorsmithing, but I find that in many games, by the time I get the ingredients needed to make anything useful in these two tradeskills, I’ve leveled past the helpfulness of what I can make.

Which Weapon?

I understand that your skills are dependent on the weapon you use, and researching Warrior, it seems Two Handed Sword is best, right? But I have a Two Handed Hammer that does considerably more DPS so, shouldn’t I just equip that instead?  I haven’t done any dungeons or groups with this character, nor do I plan to, really, so perhaps the guides I’ve seen are aimed at group effectiveness, and I should just pull out that Hammer and WHOMP stuff.