New to game and confused about crafting/gathering skills

I am new to final fantasy 14 and I've been doing research about the different crafting and gathering skills and all but the more I read, the more confused I become. Half the sites O read say to level all gathering/crafting skills to 50, the others says that they are a waste of time and not even worth doing because gear gotten from the raids and what not are better than crafted gear.

I play a gladiator soon to be paladin and before I get any further, can someone explain to me if crafting will be worth looking into doing and if so what should I aim for? And please don't simply tell me "just lvl all of them to 50" that tells me absolutely nothing about the crafting system and how it could benefit me. Any help is appreciated.

Well, as a crafter/gatherer I might be bias. But still, bias aside, Crafters/Gatherers are nobility, non-DoH/DoL are peasants.

As for those gear concerns. Crafted gear is usually 20 ilvls below the currrent max (right now, i130 lvl raid/token items, best crafted is i110). Sounds bad but...

When you get into min/maxing a Job, you'll find gear load-outs where a i110 crafted piece can make a BiS. IIRC for example, DRG current BiS can include crafted earring and belt, max melded with materias. Tanks can use i110 crafted to create hybrid STR/VIT build accessories to find their best min/maxing thresholds. Healers can use crafted jewelry that boosts Accuracy if they are tired of Missing when DPSing in raids.

Also, you synthesize plenty of non-gear related items, you can just sell them for gil, and plenty of items for spiritbonding purposes. It's worth getting into if you're interested.

If you want to experience the current 'end-game' crafting then yea you will want to get all crafts to 50. All classes can share their abilities with one another. And some of the lvl50 abilities are essential to all rotations for difficult synths. So even if you want to be exclusively a Goldsmith, you'd still want to get Carpenter to 50 for their lvl50 ability.

So make all lvl 50 is a long term goal.

Good news? It's easy to level, and not costly if you do it right. Mithrie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma5lzsYTA3I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QagyuVdORc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLKGAiUpeRo

These are 'do it along side' videos, that's why they're long. Maybe scrub through quickly, but try just doing the following first:

Just go to whichever guild, get your starter gear, and start crafting 1 of each item in your crafting log (creating an item you've never created before gives a large Experience Point bonus). You'll get lvl15 pretty easily and pretty quick. All the required materials can be bought for pennies from the vendors.

Once all classes are at 15 update gear and start doing leves with whichever class you want (remember to add all the new cross-class abilities you learned to your active class!). I recommend carpenter first but it's still up to you.

Also, if you have crafting friends, they can 'help' with leves. *hint

If you have any experience or inclination to working the market board / auction house in your previous MMO experience, then you'll want a crafter/gatherer..

In order for crafters to be viable, you need to have most of them at level 50. So it is NOT an easy undertaking.

But if you get it done, you'll have one of the most profitable ways to make gil in the entire game if you can supplement your crafting with working the market board.. If you work the market board right, you'll never need any gil because you can make it all yourself.


If your idea of crafting is to create gear for yourself, then it's true, you don't need it because crafted gear is not that great compared to dungeon loot. Rather, it's comparable, it just doesn't go as far as dungeon loots go (i.e. highest crafted gear is currently ilevel 110 where as dungeon loots go up to 130)

I have all DoH n DoL at 50+. I make good money doing so. With my DoL and retainers I get all my crafting supplies for free. So I get almost 100% profit. As I level lower lvl characters I can make the best gear available at any time. Once it is bonded, convert abd make new. Easy source of materia. Not to mention housing items, food, etc. Its another grind at times, don't get me wrong. But its a change from the fighting/lvl grind. DoH/DoL isn't for anyone tho, but I enjoy it.

Disciples of Hand, or the crafting classes have a huge amount of synergy between them, and high level crafting will require that you have multiple crafting classes on the same character for cross-class skills. Consequently, if you plan to do any crafting above 2 stars, you will need all your crafters to be 50. FYI, we are at 4-star crafting now.

People sometimes say crafting isn't worth it. This is true if you are only looking at equipment for endgame dungeons. The best equipment is obtained from dungeons and does not require crafting. That said, crafting can make comparable equipment (especially with 5 materia melded to it) and players may customize the stats on that equipment to suit their needs. As a result, the best equipment sets sometimes include one or two pieces of crafted gear for those stacking a secondary stat like 'Crit' or 'Attack Speed'.

The best crafting/gathering gear however, is crafted by the player, and there is a huge market for them depending on the server. Also, the majority of crafting classes make a lot of customized items and outfits, or consumables like food and potions for raids. House furniture and other 'quality of life' devices like mailboxes, chocobo brooms, and various bling items are also made by crafters. These can earn you a lot of money.

Disciples of Land, the gatherer classes, can make the most money selling raw materials to players. Miner and Botanist loot is especially prized by crafters, while Fisher is on and off depending on market demand. There's very little synergy between the gatherers, so just pick as many as you like and go with it.

Alright thank you everyone for your replies I can understand the crafting skills better now and also see why it is viable to get all of them to 50 at some point. I know it will be no easy task but something worth doing after reading all the posts. Thanks again for the advice and information!