FF14 Advanced Crafting Guide (Part 4 Stormblood) by Caimie Tsukino

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Originally Posted by Hasrat

Hm. Yeah. My CP's still pretty low for most rotations. Food and more CP melds would help, but probably not totally worth it.

So, gear-wise, what am I looking forward to as I get stuck at the end of HW before I actually make it to SB? The gear section of the guide felt a little unfinished. I don't see any Ironworks there, but that also sorta looks like more work than I should bother with now that 60 isn't cap. Easiest to just work up to the Augmented __Keep's gear? The i170 accessories look like a lot as well. Not sure that's something I can aim for without going the full penta-melded route, is it?

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Hi Hasrat,
My HW guide (Part 3) "looks unfinished" for 2 reasons:
(1) I left the game for about a year, so I completely missed out the time when the Carbonweave set and Ironworks set were released.
(2) Now that Stormblood is here, there are cheaper alternatives than acquiring Ironworks... which I have discussed about in Part 4 of my guide (pls see Ch54: Bridging the gap Between Heavensward and Stormblood).

I wouldn't stop you if you want Ironworks for glamor though. And they're pretty good gear to be used until level 65+ (I'd say until around level 67). Some people would even use Ironworks all the way to level 70. But I preferred to upgrade my gear to something better at around level 68.

Please do not perform any overmelds on level 60 gear. You can freely perform any in-slot melds using any Tier IV materia to boost CP or other stats though, since you can retrieve those materia any time at 100% success rate.

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Originally Posted by Frizze

You might be able to get away with just riding the 58-60(white) set until you hit 61, then upgrade to that set and skip all the 60 upgrades. The higher end recipes would be a challenge, but you can get through 60 without actually diving into the deep end if you dont want to.

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This is exactly what I would suggest.

Grind level 58 stackable items until level 61. Then you can put on the Bloodhempen set, which is very cheap to make (so if you failed to make it HQ, you can afford to try again at very low cost, and just sell the NQ one).

Once you hit 62, you can make and put on new mainhand tools (also cheap and fast to make).

Once you hit 63, you can make and put on new offhand tools and accessories (also cheap and fast to make).

So there isn't much of a point to acquire any i170/i180/i190 gear in Heavensward, especially no need to grind for rare mats or red scrips gear.

How did I missed this guide while I was leveling my crafts to 60?! The guide is amazing and so detailed. I was going off guile mates recommendations for leveling. All my crafting classes to at least 60, with a max of 63. I did this through Moogle quest and the weekly turn ins (do to working and school). I now have the summer off and was planning to get all my gathering classes (Fis 60- other two- 67) to 70 and all my crafting classes to 70. I literally was just scanning the forums yesterday at work and found this. Questions for you:
1- Granted I'm at 60 but you have a great guide for everything crafting- would you recommend for someone still "newish" to read from the start, sections, etc? Myself- I'm thinking of starting from the beginning.
2- Right now I have the the Ironworks gear for crafting (I like the look). It's HQ but not fully melded. What melds would you recommended for leveling?
3- Know any gathering guides that are as in depth as your?

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Originally Posted by KisaValkyrie

1- Granted I'm at 60 but you have a great guide for everything crafting- would you recommend for someone still "newish" to read from the start, sections, etc? Myself- I'm thinking of starting from the beginning.
2- Right now I have the the Ironworks gear for crafting (I like the look). It's HQ but not fully melded. What melds would you recommended for leveling?
3- Know any gathering guides that are as in depth as your?

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1. If you've already reached 60 then there's probably not much in the earlier guides for you but it wouldn't hurt to skim them if you have specific questions about something such as the whistle system.

2. CP if you're running short for your rotations but you'll level fast enough that melding isn't necessary. The only times you'd really need melds is if you're looking to make some of the LV 60 2-4 star items and that would only be for glams or furniture really.

3. I haven't really looked for gathering guides but they aren't necessary. Collectibles are easily the biggest source of XP for you, just look at whatever the highest XP turnins are and do those. Leves are also great if you have the allowances for them. Gathering regular mats doesn't offer much XP but if you're farming stacks for your crafting classes it will add up fast.

Gathering classes don't need melds or overmelds until you hit 70 and start going for the star items. Just keep your gear current and you'll be fine. If you have augmented red scrip gear from lv 60 or overmelded ironworks gear it will last you until 70 easily.

If you need to know where some unspoiled nodes are, there are a couple websites that have it.
https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Main_Page
https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/FF14_Wiki
http://www.ffxivclock.com/#/
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...ring&sle=true#

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Originally Posted by KisaValkyrie

How did I missed this guide while I was leveling my crafts to 60?! The guide is amazing and so detailed. I was going off guile mates recommendations for leveling. All my crafting classes to at least 60, with a max of 63. I did this through Moogle quest and the weekly turn ins (do to working and school). I now have the summer off and was planning to get all my gathering classes (Fis 60- other two- 67) to 70 and all my crafting classes to 70. I literally was just scanning the forums yesterday at work and found this. Questions for you:
1- Granted I'm at 60 but you have a great guide for everything crafting- would you recommend for someone still "newish" to read from the start, sections, etc? Myself- I'm thinking of starting from the beginning.
2- Right now I have the the Ironworks gear for crafting (I like the look). It's HQ but not fully melded. What melds would you recommended for leveling?
3- Know any gathering guides that are as in depth as your?

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Thanks very much for the compliments.

1) Much like Alien_Gamer said above, there isn't much to go through in the earlier guides. However, if you consider yourself "newish", you can check out:
Ch8: The Basic Mechanics of Crafting -- which includes a very nice graph showing you when the HQ rate suddenly goes high.
Ch10: Cross Class Skills -- which may show you some tricks involving Manip that you may not know.
Ch11: Crafting Conditions -- which you may or may not know.
Ch12A: Generating a Crafting Rotation -- you probably know these well already. But no harm checking.
Ch12B: Learn to Improvise and Modify Rotations on the Spot

2) In-slot melds for CP using Tier 4 materia. This way, you can retrieve everything at 100% rate. I do not oppose to idea of melding craft/control though if you feel the need for them. But usually CP is better. Please don't bother overmelding anything until you have acquired BiS at level 70.

3) Personally, I have only written gathering guides from ARR to HW. Here's my HW guide: http://ffxivrealm.com/guides/ff14-he...e-tsukino.157/ This old guide is kind of outdated, but it did list out some nice gathering rotations before they changed Utmost Caution. You can still make use of those rotations by slightly tweaking the use of utmost caution there. Just remember to substitute Impulsive Appraisal with Imp App II.

I kind of gave up gathering in Stormblood, due to not having enough play time. So I didn't write up anything for SB. However, I did manage to get all the folklore books, and trained up all my retainers. There really isn't much difference in Miner and Botanist in SB than in HW. The biggest difference lies in spear fishing, which I have barely touched. I do, however, have some general information for you regarding MIN and BTN. The links Alien_Gamer provided are all great. But I generated this picture here, which I thought was quite nice as well, since you can download it on your desktop, and opening it is a lot easier than opening web links and search for information:
https://i.imgur.com/1z2jsYn.png
As you can see, I have even included the one rotation you need there. So you won't forget. And I have already arranged all the items by time, so you can go through them according to your clock with ease.

Lastly, one information I figured is that the threshold gathering stats for your lv 70 retainer is 1150 Gathering. This is a critical number, as the items gathered by the retainer will increase by 1/3. To reach this number, your retainer will likely need some Ala Mhigan gear/tools.

Hey there, kind of a tricky question. I read in the update logs that the auto-synth (I presume it's called like that, don't know the name in English) will now have less chance to work, which is completely stupid since it should be here to save some time when you have to craft the same object multiple times. Since I always gather the precise number of material for my crafts, I won't have enough trust to use the function anymore. My question here is: is there some kind of way to emulate the auto-synth? Maybe with a macro or something?

All I saw on that was "Quick Synthesis success rates have been increased". Which would make more sense.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

All I saw on that was "Quick Synthesis success rates have been increased". Which would make more sense.

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Huh, weird, maybe a mistranslation then? In French, it says: "Le taux de réussite des synthèses rapides a été abaissé." which would translate in English by "The success rate of quick synthesis has been lowered.".

Ok, just checked the Japanese logs, it does say that the rate of success has been augmented. So, this was clearly a mistranslation, sorry for the useless question.

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Originally Posted by Kalayel

So, this was clearly a mistranslation, sorry for the useless question.

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No such thing as useless questions, good to clear up :)

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Originally Posted by Kalayel

Ok, just checked the Japanese logs, it does say that the rate of success has been augmented. So, this was clearly a mistranslation, sorry for the useless question.

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Glad it's cleared up! :)

Btw, look!

https://i.imgur.com/qMRKBn7.jpg

YAYYY! Kurenai! <3
"Raising her satisfaction level to maximum" does sound really kinky though! LOL!

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Originally Posted by KisaValkyrie

... - Know any gathering guides that are as in depth as your?

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There is no one who comes close to Caimie. I have found other guides, none ether as clear nor as deep.

Caimie, can we have suggestion on overmelding soon ^^
I've already crafted some pieces but I want to know what's the perfect overmeld

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Originally Posted by Sylvain

Caimie, can we have suggestion on overmelding soon ^^
I've already crafted some pieces but I want to know what's the perfect overmeld

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I am not rushing it. There's NOTHING interesting to craft at the moment anyway. So I'm selling everything that I would have needed for the new accessories/gear/offhands!
I feel like this is more of the "gear up" patch for crafters. So I'm selling all the raw mats, Kingcraft demi and even Stormsap for gil instead. LOL!

EDIT: PS - already made 5 million gil on Day 1 of the patch selling the above items, Hawk's Eye, Hardened Veteran Tree Sap and the new housing items :P

I updated the figure of Stormblood Unspoiled Gathering with the new 4.3 items:
https://i.imgur.com/AcdprI1.png

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Originally Posted by Caimie_Tsukino

I am not rushing it. There's NOTHING interesting to craft at the moment anyway. So I'm selling everything that I would have needed for the new accessories/gear/offhands!
I feel like this is more of the "gear up" patch for crafters. So I'm selling all the raw mats, Kingcraft demi and even Stormsap for gil instead. LOL!

EDIT: PS - already made 5 million gil on Day 1 of the patch selling the above items, Hawk's Eye, Hardened Veteran Tree Sap and the new housing items :P

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I am SO with you on this one Caimie. Making too much gil from materials to bother making the items.

What rotations are you using for the new gear?

So I think I've got a 100% success macro (given enough HQ) with no range using Makers mark (with NQ food and no tea). Glancing at the quality I'm quite sure you can make a muscle memory/Initial preparations with no range and 100% success, but its going to take HQ food and Tea.

I'll do some testing tonight and then see if I can write up a post with screenshots.

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Originally Posted by Alien_Gamer

What rotations are you using for the new gear?

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Haven't crafted anything yet, LOL! Too busy making gil :p
2nd Day of the new patch, Stormsap still selling like hot cakes. Made over 10 million gil so far.
https://i.imgur.com/iyOels0.png
Here's my 2 cents...
First, in this patch 4.3, most of the new gear and accessories are for crafters and gatherers, with nothing for DoW/DoM yet. Thus, even if you quickly maxed out your crafters' stats, it only benefits you on making these crafting/gathering gear/tools. These items are not going to sell well on the market, since most crafters will be making their own. The gathering tools might be ok, but seeing how they have the yellow scrip tools as well, gatherers have an alternative option. Thus, dumping money into buying Stormsap and mats to quickly reach top stats will not guarantee you gil return. If you wanna do this, it's basically using gil to exchange for the satisfaction of crafting some new recipes.

Second, the new recipes are apparently not much more difficult than the ones we had. Sure, there's a tad bit more quality to push. But nothing compares with our old special 2 star recipes with over 6K difficulty. Thus, it doens't excite me enough to spend gil to rush into it.

Third, the first few days of a new patch is always full of gil-making opportunities. If you miss it, you're gonna have to wait for the next patch. This is why I'd rather delay my own acquisition of the new gear/tools but to sell off all my mats, including the Stormsap, since some people are paying such high prices for them.

Forth, currently, we're getting 3 Stormsap per day from Namazu quests. The item seems rare, demand is high, and so the price is high (500K on Day1 of patch. 350K on Day2). 3 weeks from now, when everyone's Namazu rank is like 6 or 7, people will get more than just 3 sap a day, and when everyone has enough sap, supply will be higher than demand. The price will drop very quickly. I expect the price to go down to about 150K or lower in 3 weeks. So yeah, I am selling my first week of Stormsap from my Namazu. So I'll be a week slower than most others to even start crafting. But the gil I made this week will cover my expenses for the whole patch. I can even buy back all the sap I sold later if I really want to. LOL

Before the next patch arrives, I'll still have my crafters maxed out in time, ready to dig into new DoW/DoM recipes for hotter sales. :)

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Originally Posted by Katlyna

So I think I've got a 100% success macro (given enough HQ) with no range using Makers mark (with NQ food and no tea). Glancing at the quality I'm quite sure you can make a muscle memory/Initial preparations with no range and 100% success, but its going to take HQ food and Tea.

I'll do some testing tonight and then see if I can write up a post with screenshots.

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Looking forward to seeing your rotations, Katty! They're always so carefully and beautifully designed! I always recommend people to check your threads.

Other than the namazu beast tribes, there r other methods of getting stormsaps.

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Originally Posted by Bubbly

Other than the namazu beast tribes, there r other methods of getting stormsaps.

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Rumors say desyn of the new 24-men raid gear can get Stormsap, but nothing is confirmed yet.

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Originally Posted by Caimie_Tsukino

Rumors say desyn of the new 24-men raid gear can get Stormsap, but nothing is confirmed yet.

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Yes, but not easy to get the gears now tat it is greed only.

Desynthing yellow scrip gathering n crafting rings does yield the saps but at a very low rate. I had just tested on 10 gathering rings n i gotten 2 saps. With my gsm desynth at 350, the success rate is 70% without food.

Doesn't sound like a good way to get those sap imo
We still get 3 a day,it's not a lot but I don't see myself doing tons of collectible for that (especially that I have no gatherer)

Why is crafter collectible so expensive while gatherer is free x_x this isn't fair

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Originally Posted by Shadygrove

I am SO with you on this one Caimie. Making too much gil from materials to bother making the items.

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Holy crap, Stormsap price are already down to 200K today! LOL! They crashed down much faster than I thought! I'm so glad I sold them all in the past 2 days at much higher prices!

As far as melding is concerned, while I would normally agree with waiting until we have new stuff to craft, I still went ahead and melded the new accessories and belt, because 21 more cp was too much to pass up

Yeah it is a shame about Stormsap i was expecting to bank on it like i did with Glass Fiber, lol
Oh well

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Originally Posted by Maero

Yeah it is a shame about Stormsap i was expecting to bank on it like i did with Glass Fiber, lol
Oh well

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It's down to 89K today on Zalera. I think I saw it at 70K at one point... It's time to buy instead of selling now.

I've seen them spike to 110k and drop as low as 70k. They're still in good demand from those trying to make the new sets to sell on the MB. Probably best to buy them up when they're 70k for personal use and if you have a spare retainer spot, list your spares around 100-110k just incase someone buys them out. Then rebuy again at 70k later.

Kingcraft Demi tend to spike most towards the end of the week when everyone has done their Custom's and supply is running a little low.

Also Ixal can be worth doing for a little extra profit. CP I materia were almost 20k at one point, but still can be around 10-15.

This is soooo worth the delaying of my Stormsap acquisition! :D :D :D
Its eyes roll and its whiskers move too!
It cost me 8 tokens!
https://i.imgur.com/dJQM1f2.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/CtOQl5M.jpg
And by the way, please DO NOT skip the cutscene of the Namazu rank-up quest from Rank 6-7.
It's a straight up 10 min laugh from start to finish! You don't wanna miss that!

That's facanating and appaling Caimie.

So far still no Wind-up Sadus on the Sarganats MB but I am on pacific time so therefore unlikely to be first to list.

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Originally Posted by Caimie_Tsukino

This is soooo worth the delaying of my Stormsap acquisition! :D :D :D
Its eyes roll and its whiskers move too!
It cost me 8 tokens!
https://i.imgur.com/dJQM1f2.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/CtOQl5M.jpg
And by the way, please DO NOT skip the cutscene of the Namazu rank-up quest from Rank 6-7.
It's a straight up 10 min laugh from start to finish! You don't wanna miss that!

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I ended up buying and selling about 12 pots of storms when namazu were first released. Still had plenty of koban ti buy this and everything else. Definitely worth saving for, though, even if it is huge.

Hoo La La! I can finally dress-up Kurenai!!! *evil grin*
http://ffxivrealm.com/threads/post-y...71#post-204723

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Originally Posted by Caimie_Tsukino

This is soooo worth the delaying of my Stormsap acquisition! :D :D :D
Its eyes roll and its whiskers move too!
It cost me 8 tokens!

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That thing is awesome. Totally putting one of those in my front yard once I get it.

Hello! I popped here to see if perhaps you have a meld idea for the new gear yet? Since 4.4 is right around the corner.

Or should I just leave it on my retainer and wait until it launches?

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Originally Posted by RayneLittlewinkle

Hello! I popped here to see if perhaps you have a meld idea for the new gear yet? Since 4.4 is right around the corner.

Or should I just leave it on my retainer and wait until it launches?

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Definitely not leave it on retainer. I would start overmelding, but leave room for the future. Currently, we don't know what the craftsmanship "threshold" is. So I would max out CP, while leaving room so that we can either go more control or more craftsmanship later. Right now is also a good time to buy and stock up materia, as the price have gone down by almost half of the price that was at the beginning of this patch. You don't have to follow my melds, as I am unsure what is "the best". But here are my melds for your reference:
https://i.imgur.com/7RnVpcC.png
https://i.imgur.com/CAAnQKC.png
https://i.imgur.com/i4an0RY.png
https://i.imgur.com/g5VL710.png
https://i.imgur.com/BF9Z5mn.png
https://i.imgur.com/6WfghVW.png

Thank you so much! When it comes to melding I'm still quite a new person at it so I try to follow the melds of the gurus such as yourself closely as I can :) seems like I have my work cut out for me. Going to start melding it tonight

My room for melding is I haven't upgraded any of my armor but the head. Tools have CP only like Caimie's. Jewelry is almost all max melded (still have one 5% ... ), current emphasis CP > control > craftsmanship.

Five left side pieces, I will get around to making them but currently quite overpowered for my macros.

For now I have only partially melded the left side so that max CP is available, but that's it. Right side is still crafted but unused for this reason. Once we know the new requirement, especially craftmanship-wise, I'll put everything into control. But certainly with something a bit more low-cost, Caimie's meld seems too expensive (especially those overmelded materia VI).

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Originally Posted by Kalayel

For now I have only partially melded the left side so that max CP is available, but that's it. Right side is still crafted but unused for this reason. Once we know the new requirement, especially craftmanship-wise, I'll put everything into control. But certainly with something a bit more low-cost, Caimie's meld seems too expensive (especially those overmelded materia VI).

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You don't need to over meld any VI's to have a decent set, you can just use VI's in guaranteed slots then fill the rest with V's and others. Just make sure you cap CP and meat the requirements in craftsmanship and use HQ mats to make up the lack of control you have.

Ooh, thank you so much. I've been waiting to see what you meld. I always use your guides/melds as a reference for what I should do. I usually change them a little to meet my needs but it's super nice having a place to start. So far I've only overmleded my boots and belt I think since they were so easy to hit the cap. I need to throw in a lttle more gp and hit 800. I was a little bit slacking on that. Love your guides btw. I can't tell you how invaluable they were to a new player like me. I only started playing right after Stormblood came out and now I have all my crafting maxed out with the latest gear. Still working on getting materia though. Obviously I'm not super rich yet and can't afford materias at 300k a pop but I'm hoping after the next big expansion/patch that will change. :D TY for everything. Do you ever do a melding guide for gathering gear? If so I'd love to see it. If not then I'll probably wait for the next items to come out before trying to meld that stuff. Ty again. /bow

P.S. yours was the first guide I read on anything concerning FFXIV. I was so confused by crafting at the start but thanks to you and time it made the whole process much easier.

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Originally Posted by Faeon

You don't need to over meld any VI's to have a decent set, you can just use VI's in guaranteed slots then fill the rest with V's and others. Just make sure you cap CP and meat the requirements in craftsmanship and use HQ mats to make up the lack of control you have.

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Yeah, that's what I'm doing with my current build, but I kinda want to max control, like maximum overdrive style, in order to use less HQ material. I already have 10 materia VI of each kind and 50 level V of each. This time, I'm gonna melt it, melt it good.