Crafting and Sanity

[K'nahli]

So there's a turn order for it too? Here I thought you just power them all to 15 and then focus on one untill you get errything to 50.

 

I think you got your answer already but there is no order to follow. There are just some that are more beneficial than others to have early, particularly so when levelling new classes.

 

I was so excited when I found out there was crafting in this game. Now I am sad because it all sounds like gibberish to me.

 

Everyone is giving such useful advice, I wondered if there is an introductory crafting guide somewhere that explains everything in detail?

 

EDIT: Found one!

 

If you have any further questions then feel free to ask here ^^   If no-one else then I may be able to help you despite being out of the crafting loop for quite a while.

[Kurt S.]

Thanks for all the useful insight everyone, much appreciated so I guess WVR to 50 first for me, if nothing other than the fact that it's my highest level craft sitting at level 20.

[K'nahli]

Thanks for all the useful insight everyone, much appreciated so I guess WVR to 50 first for me, if nothing other than the fact that it's my highest level craft sitting at level 20.

 

Good luck ^^

 

Also, if you'd like help making HQ items for the later quests then feel free to ask me(everything's at 50). Though it was a long time ago I have not forgotten how annoyingly tedious, luck-based and money-draining they can be without many of the other skills to help you.

[Gegenji]

Thanks for all the useful insight everyone, much appreciated so I guess WVR to 50 first for me, if nothing other than the fact that it's my highest level craft sitting at level 20.

 

I actually leveled my first crafting class to 50 making heavy use of the Ixal dailies, so that's an option along with leves and such. Of course, it's less hair-pulling (especially in the later tiers - High Wind in Ishgard! :frustrated: ) to already have a 50 to craft the quest items and then turn them in with the class you're trying to level (like, say, CUL?).

 

But yeah, don't doubt the power of leve turnins. I got CRP up from... 16 to 27 in an hour or so just by turning in HQ items. If you can get someone willing to sell you a kit or just sit there and hand off the HQ items for you? You could get a class to 50 in no time at all.

[Kellach Woods]

And it'd certainly be faster than the way I did it.

[K'nahli]

Leves are mandatorrrrrryyyyyy. If you put your time to crafting alone then you can make your way to 50 in 2-3 days if I recall correctly, while not spending too much gold if you carefully pick your leves and weigh them against material cost.

[Gegenji]

Leves are mandatorrrrrryyyyyy. If you put your time to crafting alone then you can make your way to 50 in 2-3 days if I recall correctly, while not spending too much gold if you carefully pick your leves and weigh them against material cost.

 

And, actually, most of the guides I look at do the weighing for you. They often show all available leves, then cross-out the ones that are too cost/material intensive and bold the cheapest/easiest to make ones. They'll often say whether certain items tend to be able to be purchased on the AH cheaply too - such as HQ Walnut Lumber.

 

... Though, that varies from server to server, I think, and how many folks are really pushing to level crafting classes at one time. And what prices the markets are sitting at overall.

[Kellach Woods]

Courier over everything when it comes to leves.

[K'nahli]

Leves are mandatorrrrrryyyyyy. If you put your time to crafting alone then you can make your way to 50 in 2-3 days if I recall correctly, while not spending too much gold if you carefully pick your leves and weigh them against material cost.

 

And, actually, most of the guides I look at do the weighing for you. They often show all available leves, then cross-out the ones that are too cost/material intensive and bold the cheapest/easiest to make ones. They'll often say whether certain items tend to be able to be purchased on the AH cheaply too - such as HQ Walnut Lumber.

 

... Though, that varies from server to server, I think, and how many folks are really pushing to level crafting classes at one time. And what prices the markets are sitting at overall.

 

Ah, possibly ^^  I never used a guide personally, I just checked the available leves along with the current prices and did the math myself since material prices seemed to fluctuate quite a lot at the low level anyways; though it's certainly something worth considering.

[Myxie Tryxle]

The main caution I'd have about kitting your crafting classes (any or all of them) is one of learning. The manner in which crafting evolves as you gain new powers (class and cross-class) is something you won't necessarily learn by turning in someone else's kits or using someone else's macros.

 

That said, crafting can be rather daunting at first without a little power-leveling. It's been the main focus of my character since her inception, and I just last night finally worked up the nerve to start the grind from 3 to 4 stars. Turns out it isn't nearly as difficult or costly as I expected it would be. That's been my experience with every step of crafting in this game though. Once I take that first step and discover it's not nearly as hard as I was expecting, I'm off to the races.

 

On a side note, it's entirely possible to make money... a lot of money... while also leveling crafting. By the time I got all 8 classes to 50, I had made millions of gil, all while still having gathering classes in the 25-30 range and buying a lot of my materials. The opportunity is there if you're willing to put the time into it.

[Kellach Woods]

I keep hearing that but I see absolutely nothing that actually would make a ton of cash were I to make it. I'm poor as fuck, have everything 50'd except DoW/DoM (granted, I have all of right-side full melded exception Off-Hand).

 

So to me, that's just a blatant lie people keep parroting. I've made more money from selling Sealants (which I soon need to hoard), gathering Clusters and Spiritbonding than I've ever made while crafting. Dunno when those millions of gil were, but they sure as hell weren't recent.

[Gegenji]

That's been a major question of mine as well - people talk about making lots of gil crafting, yet they never say what they're crafting to make the gil.

 

I mean, I suppose it makes some sense; you don't want everyone making the same stuff you are and thus causing prices to drop. However, I wouldn't mind a hint of what sort of things people want that wouldn't involve me looking at every single item I can craft and then checking the AH for prices. Even as something as simple as "people pay a lot for high-level rings." Generic, but not pointing out your personal cash cow.

 

I mean... Chachan's 50 ARM/BSM... could he be making things right now to pad out his bank? He has a room that still needs the pricier pieces of furniture, so knowing I could be crafting some relatively simple-to-make chest piece and then selling it for six digits would be really nice to know. Not to mention that gil would also probably go back into buying the materials for leveling the other crafting classes... and the higher level crystals for when I start banging my head against the road to the Vulcan Lucis.

[Caspar]

I hear synthesizing materials such as ingots and lumber can occasionally be profitable, because there are a lot of crafters who don't want to waste shards making them. If you gather your own shards in bulk, you might be able to make a profit that way.

 

But that depends on what's in demand. I have no idea now.

[cuideag]

While I did not make millions levelling crafting I have certainly made millions since. If you are smart about what you buy and what you sell, turning profits is easy peasy. There is no solid guide because the markets fluctuate and change. I haven't even tapped into the 3 star junk yet and I'm still making good gil - not as much as others, to be sure, but I haven't invested as much time as others I am sure.

 

Technically 3 star GSM with everything else 2 star but I haven't really gotten into the swing of 3 star junk yet because, yeah, time.

[Kellach Woods]

Well, leveling everything to 50 was a giant colossal waste of time and gil I guess.

 

I have no idea what people fucking want that isn't already cornered by people who've got more buying power than I do, and each time I find the one thing I guess I could craft for not a lot it ends up sinking by a metric fuckton the next day. I see no point in advising anyone to pick up crafting honestly.

 

And gathering's even worse as far as making money goes.

[Kage]

Well you're not supposed to just dump everything into the market. that's how prices crash @_@ Back when hardened sap sold for 7-9k you didn't just dump all 50 saps into the market. You put them in like 10 at a time.

 

HQ Tomatoes are a nice decent sell once in awhile.

 

HQ food is as well.

 

Even NQ Potent Poison Pots.

 

Aka things people use for raids or crafting.

 

They aren't -always- in need but it requires market watching.

[Kurt S.]

Is it normal to feel so accomplished after making a bed for a room and sticking it in there?

 

Like literally the first piece of decor I made and I feel so damn happy.

[Chris Ganale]

I make money by hoarding up clusters while I'm out doing other gathering, waiting until I have some number over 100 that evenly divides into 3, then split them to sell between my retainers. It doesn't make me as much as my real money source (materia), but it's a nice little boost every other week. (I don't gather as much as I should)

[Caspar]

Is it normal to feel so accomplished after making a bed for a room and sticking it in there?

 

Like literally the first piece of decor I made and I feel so damn happy.

I ignored a lot of the Dreams of Ice Patch notes and focused largely on the fact that I could now make Towel Hangers, as it bothered me that my room had a bath and no towel.

 

So I sort of understand being particular or proud of your decor.

[Myxie Tryxle]

I keep hearing that but I see absolutely nothing that actually would make a ton of cash were I to make it. I'm poor as fuck, have everything 50'd except DoW/DoM (granted, I have all of right-side full melded exception Off-Hand).

 

So to me, that's just a blatant lie people keep parroting. I've made more money from selling Sealants (which I soon need to hoard), gathering Clusters and Spiritbonding than I've ever made while crafting. Dunno when those millions of gil were, but they sure as hell weren't recent.

 

If you're looking for stuff that's going to make you hundreds of thousands in a single craft while leveling up, yeah, that doesn't exist. There are, however, lots of items that will make you decent chunks of change that add up quickly. To give you an idea of the economics/numbers I'm referring to, here's how I did it.

 

There are some items with a very nice profit margin if you can HQ them. In my case it would cost me about 2-4k to craft the item, and it would sell for 15-20k if you HQed it. I picked roughly 8 of these items and always had 2-4 of each up at any time. It would usually take a day or two for most of them to sell out, but I was dilligent in maintaining my stocks, and occasionally had to drive out competition by dropping the profit margin significantly. These were items that could be HQed by someone with decent skill at the level they were current for. It probably helped that I leveled all my skills together rather than going for one at a time, so my gear was always up to par, and I could buy raw materials to turn into HQ intermediates rather than paying premium prices for stuff like HQ boar leather, HQ horn glue, etc.

 

Just using that strategy I pulled in an easy million gil per week even while leveling. It takes market savvy and a little bit of research as well as patience, but it does work. Not gonna say exactly which items they were, as I've suggested this method to guildmates in more detail so they can use it (I'm running a crafting guild, after all), but they're fairly easy to figure out if you spend some time on the markets. I looked a month or two ago at those items, which I haven't been doing recently due to being able to HQ 2 and 3 star stuffs now, and they still existed and still looked just as profitable as when I did them.

 

TL;DR Yes, you can easily pull in a million gil per week while leveling if you're patient and diligent.