What crafting class should I pick up first?

[Shibou]

I just started about two weeks ago and I've been doing the quests and leveling, getting by on quest gear, but at this point I'm thinking I should pick up some crafting. I really have not looked into the crafting in this game at all yet so I know little to nothing about it. What would anyone recommend as the best one to pick up first, and why?

[Urthdigger]

All of them.

Crafting in this game has a lot of overlap between classes. They all use the same armor (Barring some JSE options at 50, 60, and 70), there are cross-class actions where you can use actions gained on one crafter on a different one, and there are many secondary materials made by other crafters that are required for recipes. Then you toss in how you'll need a fair amount of classes to make any job's gear, toss in food and making gear for the crafting classes themselves and... yeah. Best to just do them all at once.

You may also want to level up gatherers alongside them as well, so you can gather your own materials as well.

[Frizze]

Im going to give a different answer then Urth. He isnt wrong(you do get the most out of crafting if you have them all leveled roughly equally), but im going to give another equally not-wrong answer. You havent looked seriously at crafting yet, so you dont know if youll enjoy it or how deep into the pool you want to jump. So my advice to you is going to be to try leveling Culinarian.

So why CUL? A quickie character search shows me that while you spent a little time on conjurer, you have focused primarily on bard - and progressed to the low 40s level wise. So if you wanted to make yourself a gear upgrade youd need to get a class into at least the 30s(maybe a GSM in the 20s could upgrade your rings). Thats a lot of work before you see any benefit. So that eliminates CRP(bow), LTW(much of your armor), WVR(odd pieces), and GSM(most jewelery). Yours isnt really a heavy armor class(ARM) and you wouldnt need too many other smithed items either(BSM). You could use ALC to whip up some potions, though the really good ones would take a decent time investment and many of them can be had for a song on the market board. As for CUL, you wouldnt be making yourself the best meals right away either, but any meal at all that you consume gives you an EXP boost(3%) and its not hard to find some lower level ones thatd get you a few extra points of health or damage. In addition to having a more immediate benefit, CUL uses very few ingredients from other crafting classes to make its products(to give a counter example, a LTW might need string from a WVR plus some metal from an ARM alongside the leather they tanned personally to make a piece of armor) - indeed, many of your ingredients would either be hunted or fished up(the rest being primarily botanist items). And finally, if you do take the full crafting plunge then you will 100% want the CUL cross class skills as they have a few of the best(and hardest to replace) - so getting a headstart on that certainly wouldnt be bad.

Quick side note. Crafting/gathering is fairly well level synced to match up with adventuring. What that means is that a level 40 botanist would gather certain wood that a level 40 carpenter would use to make a bow that a level 40 bard would want. And as a bonus piece of advice, ill give you a headstart on trying crafting. Whichever class you decide to try first, once you become a member of their guild and unlock the class you can get your first few levels super easy and quick. Each guild has an NPC who sells the low level crafting mats(Material Supplier) that you need to make all your recipes up to roughly level 15(CUL is the exception - they need some fish that come from a different merchant elsewhere in that same town). Just making one of each item usually gets you enough exp to get to roughly level 15 and only takes around an hour or so to do. Regardless of what you pick, i hope you continue enjoying the game and please come back if you have further questions!

[mikanana]

All of them.

[Vineas]

I personally start with the one relevant to my main job.. When I started with Lancer, I picked carpenter because I want to craft my weapon.
But after a while (carpenter lv 20/30ish), I start to lvl up the rest because we need to unlock all the cross class skills.

[Niwashi]

If you want to start with just one, Culinarian is the most independent of the others, as Frizze discussed. Its only downside is that it tends to need a lot more ingredients, so if you're taking the independent route of gathering your own mats, you'll spend more time on that than on actually crafting.

If you want to start with a couple of them, Weaver and Leatherworker complement each other well since they use a lot of each other's materials, and starting there has the advantage that you can make most of your crafting/gathering gear. I find this a good starting point. (And making my own crafting gear tends to make these two, particularly weaver, pull a bit ahead of the others even when I try to balance leveling all of them.)

Once you've tried it out enough on a class or two to decide whether you like it or not, if you decide to continue further, you will end up wanting all of them. A good initial goal for expanding to all eight is to get all of them up to level 15 for the first set of cross-class skills, and Culinarian up to level 37 for a particularly good cross-class skill. (After that, the next good skills come at level 50, which takes a bit longer to reach.)

[NanaWiloh]

I would like to add to what Frizze posted; I would advise leveling Botany and Mining alongside Culanary. You can get most of the non-crafted materials for Culanary from Botany, but Mining provides the various shards that all crafts use. You don't need to take mining very high at first, but as your crafting progresses you will need to bring mining up in Levels. No matter what crafting class you go with leveling Mining and Botany alongside side it will save you a lot of gil and headaches later on.

[Niwashi]

You can get most of the non-crafted materials for Culanary from Botany, but Mining provides the various shards that all crafts use.

To clarify this just a little: You can get all the shards from either Botany or Mining. However, at level 20 you get cross-class skills to increase your shard yield. If you have both BTN and MIN to at least that level, then you can use those skills for all six elements. With just one or the other, you'll only have access to three of them (lightning, fire, and water from Mining; earth, ice, and wind from Botany).

[savageink]

I always start with Goldsmith. Rings earrings and necklaces are needed by every job and they always seem like the least rewarded. It works for Old Man Manderville.

[NanaWiloh]

To clarify this just a little: You can get all the shards from either Botany or Mining. However, at level 20 you get cross-class skills to increase your shard yield. If you have both BTN and MIN to at least that level, then you can use those skills for all six elements. With just one or the other, you'll only have access to three of them (lightning, fire, and water from Mining; earth, ice, and wind from Botany).

Thanks for correction on that. Shows even a veteran can mess up.