Is it worthwhile to level crafting in Final Fantasy XIV? The answer is both yes and no. Crafting enables you to repair your gear anywhere– anytime you want to. You can also earn a bit of gil from crafted goods. Crafting also means you don’t have to look for people to meld materia in your gear for you. And finally, yes, crafting in FFXIV can be a fun game in itself if you’re into that sort of thing.
However, it costs a lot of gil and takes a lot of time to level crafting. Crafting only starts to become effective when you have a few cross-class skills and crafting is not the only way to make gil anyway. On top of that, the only good thing about level 50 crafted gear is that you can meld it with the materia of your choice, but the ilvl of most crafted gear is lower than the ilvl of items that can be picked up with with Tomes or that drop in dungeons.
If, after considering all of the options, you still want to be a crafter, here’s a basic guide to get you started:
Disclaimer: This article’s written from a personal point of view and includes quite a few of my own opinions. Your experiences may vary. Realm economy and population are also large factors when it comes to the given success of any crafting trade.
1. Choose Your Main Craft
It’s pricey to level a crafting class, and it’s even more pricey when you reach lvl 50 because you need to materia up your crafting gears for 2 star and 3 star recipes. You can level several crafts at the same time to save time and teleport money but before you choose, here are some points you need to consider:
- Choose crafting classes that are based in the same town. You don’t want to travel that much.
- Gridania: Carpenter, Leatherworker.
- Limsa Lominsa: Armorer, Blacksmith, Culinarian.
- Ul’dah: Alchemist, Goldsmith, Weaver.
- Choose crafting classes that use the same supplier (Miner, Botanist, Fisher– I will talk about this next)
- Chose crafting classes that benefit you the most. If they’re in different towns then it’s your choice whether to level them together or separately. Here are some suggestions:
- All classes: Alchemist, Culinarian, Goldsmith.
- Tank classes: Armorer, Blacksmith.
- Healers and casters: Weaver.
- Melee and Archers: Leatherworker.
- Alchemist: Arcanist weapons, Conjurer one-handed wands.
- Carpenter: Conjurer two-handed staffs, Lancer weapons, Archer weapons. Conjurer and Thaumaturge shields.
- Goldsmith: Pugilist and Thaumaturge weapons.
2. Level a Gatherer
Gathering your own materials can save you a shitload of gil and you can sell the leftovers to make some profit, too. The list below is the “primary” ingredient, while many of them require a mix of something else. For example a piece of armour from an armorer could need cloth from a weaver.
- Miner: supply materials for Armorer, Blacksmith, Goldsmith.
- Botanist: supply materials for Alchemist, Carpenter, Culinarian, Weaver.
- Fisher: supply materials for Culinary, Alchemist.
3. Level Up
The best way to level up your craft is to do Levequests. Go do some research on Google (alternatively, check out our guide for a list of resources) and you will find many sites that give you a list of what Leves to do and what items to get. Although it saves a lot of time doing this, I have to confess I have never followed those sites. I find it more fun finding out what Leves to do and which items to get as I go along. You can do all the Leves available if you like but I wouldn’t recommend you to do so. Some of the Leves just give too little return for the effort you put in. Here are some tips for choosing the right Leves:
- Choose ones that give the most EXP. They will all be from the Leve NPCs located in the 3 major cities.
- If the required item that grants the highest amount of EXP is too expensive to make or takes too much time to gather all the materials, it might work better to choose something easier. Choose from either the current level of Levequests in town or out in the field, or from the previous level tier of Levequests– whichever is easier to do.
Trying to HQ the required items also gives you more EXP than just hitting the Synthesis button or doing Quick Synthesis. The higher the quality bar, the more EXP you get in the end whether you actually get HQ or not. Besides, trying to craft HQ items benefits you in various ways:
- By using HQ materials, you get a higher chance to make HQ items. So, craft your own HQ materials.
- By turning in HQ item for Levequests, you receive a 200% EXP bonus.
- If you want to make some gil, you can get more gil from HQ items/materials.
You can complete all entries on your Crafting Log for the reward EXP, but I personally don’t do this because it takes a lot of time to gather all of the materials.
Food also helps when you’re going to synthesis a whole bunch of items. Choose the food with these crafting stats:
- Craftmanship: The more Craftmanship you have, the more Progress your Synthesis will do.
- Control: Control makes your Increase Quality more effective, hence giving you higher chances of creating HQ items.
- CP: Gives you more CP to spend.
For a guide on how to get started with the actual process of crafting, check out our FFXIV crafting leve/HQ guide or this link.
4. Crafting Equipment
Most of the crafting gear comes from Weavers and Goldsmiths, but you don’t have to start with those two classes to be able to wear gear. Doing class quests will grant you numerous pieces of gear and even a main-hand and off-hand tool. If you have a bit of gil to spend, get yourself new crafting gears every 10 or 15 levels.
5. Funding the Crafting Journey
I have some friends complaining to me that they can’t make any gil out of their crafting and that it costs too much to continue leveling it. But that is generally not true. I might not be the best person to give advice on how to make gil, but I can give you some ideas on how to increase the amount of gil in your pocket. My best record was 500k gil in a week which probably isn’t a lot, but it’s not bad for someone who generally doesn’t concern herself with money-making strategies.
- What to craft?
- Lvl 1-5 HQ gear. A lot of people will buy these instead of running around naked.
- HQ craftin gears. These are almost always in high demand, at least on my realm.
- Ingots, Lumbers, Formulas, Threads, Bolts of Cloth, and Leathers. HQ or not, those almost always sell.
- If you’re a Culinarian, try the HQ food that appear in the class quests and Levequests.
- Farm for popular crafting materials such as Shards, Crystals, Clusters, Logs, Ores, Alumen, Cotton Bolls, Flax, Diremite Webs, Fleece, Toad Skin, Boar Skin, etc These are all things that you can almost always count on to sell when it comes to making money.
- Play with the Market Board:
- Never flood the MB with a large amount of anything. It’s not a good idea to make too much of something. Something might be sold for a good price on the market in the morning and go down to less than half that price in the evening. There’s a lot of competition. You never know.
- If you can, fill all 20 slots of your shop with whatever. Replace them if they’re not sold for a week (or less if you’re not patient). Remember, every single gil counts. Even if the item you put on the market only makes you 5 gil profit each, eventually that will stack up. I don’t put up the cheaper stuff anymore, but that was how I originally started making money.
- Undercutting is not always the way to go. You sell things faster by undercutting people but with a bit of patience, you can get more gil from your items. Look at the Sales History and put your item up at the average price of the past sales.
- The price of a single item is always higher than the price of a large stack. Selling a stack might clear up your inventory faster but smaller amounts are often gone quicker and get more return, too.
- If you think you’re good enough at playing with the MB, look for cheap items and resell them. I don’t do this often but I know a friend who got several million from just doing this.
- Remember that anything sold has a 5% tax, so make sure your profits will cover that or you’ll lose money rather than gain it.
6. The End of the Journey
When you reach lvl 50 on your first crafting class, you will realize that the journey has not ended. Rather, it hasn’t even started. Most people give up right here. It could be that they don’t find crafting rewarding or they simply just dislike the whole crafting thing. If you choose to continue on this road, then you need a plan.
- Gear up and get the materia you need. Don’t go in blind. Remember your gear has stat caps. To prevent wasting money on expensive materia when you don’t need them, check this guide before picking up materia.
- Plan on cross-class skills. They make it much easier to make HQ items and they’re what set FFXIV‘s crafting system above those in other MMORPGs. Here are some suggested cross-class skills:
- Most used:
- Trick of the Trade (Lvl 15 Alchemist)
- Steady Hand II (Lvl 37 Culinarian)
- Hasty Touch (Lvl 15 Culinarian)
- Manipulation (Lvl 15 Goldsmith)
- Byregot’s Blessing (Lvl 50 Carpenter) or Rumination (Lvl 15 Carpenter)
- Comfort Zone (Lvl 50 Alchemist)
- Situational:
- Ingenuity II (Lvl 50 Blacksmith)
- Careful Synthesis II (Lvl 50 Weaver)
- Piece by Piece (Lvl 50 Armorer)
- Useful for leveling low level crafts:
- Flawless Synthesis (Lvl 37 Goldsmith)
- Most used:
- Grab Master Recipes from Revenant’s Toll.
And that’s it. Go pick up the craft of your choice and get started. At the end of the road, you will be a better crafter than I can ever be (because I never reached the end– I admittedly abandoned the ship midway). If you quit halfway through, don’t worry– you’re not the only one. No one will judge you by the number of lvl 50 classes you have. While you’re at it, I hope you have fun. I certainly did until I leveled the last 2 crafting classes. Cheers.
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