When is a good time to start Crafting??

I see everyone talking about leveling in the crafting jobs but when is it a good time to start doing that? I'm still working on the MSQ so I wasnt sure when to even worry about crafting. Will the main story lead me in to it or something?

As soon as possible really. I see your a level 34 thaumaturge?
You easily already have access to the crafts, just need to visit the guilds in each of the cities to get started. Ul'Dhah, Gridania and Limsa Lominsa.

If you want to make your own gear, then it's good to get your crafting and gathering classes up to around the level of your main class/job, so the earlier you start the better. (The only caveat being that you'll want retainers before getting too far into crafting or you'll quickly run out of inventory space, and they're unlocked at level 17 in the MSQ.)

However, leveling the crafting classes can take quite a bit of time, and many players don't like taking that much time away from their first class/job while going through the storyline. They prefer to just focus on it until they finish the main scenario, then go back and level additional classes, including crafting. That prevents the crafting from being useful for their first class/job, but it can still be useful for later alt classes.

Which is more important is up to you, so it might be at level 17, level 60, or any time in between.

If you are focussing on your main, just doing daily GC turn-ins will level your crafting classes with a minimum of effort. Should take you no more then 15-30 minutes to collect the ingredients and craft the items for all 8 classes. Also give the ixal beast tribes a look. They give a nice amount of xp. 1-2 hq turn ins will give you a level.

Originally my first class to 50 was carpenter and second was bard. Something similar happend when heavensward hit, I only leveled my brd far enough to get access to area's i needed for leveling my miner/botanist to supply materials for my crafters.

During the levelling of your first class/job, the game provides you all the gear you will need to get through the story.

The benefit of starting crafting now is you will be able to make your own gear, which will be better than the game provided gear and you will have it sooner.
The detriment of starting now is, crafting takes a lot of Gil. Low level DoW/DoM have a difficult time making money (or at least they did when I was levelling up in by-gone era).

I would personally advise to complete getting your first class all the way through the MSQ to lvl60 then start crafting.
You will have a decent amount of Gil (provided you just played with game provided gear) and did not bother with glamour purchases along the way.
You will have access to the daily roulettes which will provide you a good source new income each day.
You will have a retainer or two levelled along with you, they can obtain crafting mats for you or you can sell their returns on the MB.

Levelling crafting takes a large amount of Gil (best guess of 3-5 mil) to get to end game. You can offset many costs by also levelling your gathers along with the crafters.

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Originally Posted by ChameleonMS

crafting takes a lot of Gil

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That depends on your approach to it. If you buy all your stuff then it costs a lot of gil. If you make it yourself, it doesn't cost any gil at all, and in fact can be a significant source of earning extra gil as you go. Doing it yourself costs a lot of time instead, though.

You get to choose your priorities in terms of how much gil you're willing to spend compared to how much time you're willing to spend. People who start crafting early tend not to have a lot of gil (since, as you mentioned, it's a lot harder to come by at low levels), so they're more likely to advance crafting by gathering and making stuff themselves rather than buying their materials (let alone buying finished turn-in items).

The result is that for people who start early, it's generally a time-sink, whereas for people who start late it's more likely to be a gil-sink. It's certainly one or the other.

On a wim I decided to level the crafting jobs on my alt. They are currently at lvl 24-30. I bought all the materials i needed from either fc house vendor or other npc vendors. With the occasional marketboard purchase trown in.
From selling all the crafted items i made 1m. So its not so bad. Things only tend to get more expensive when you level past that; At least if you dont gather the stuf yourself.
Just keep an eye on the marketboard and learn how the prices fluctuate so you can buy them when the prices are low.

You can get a min and a botanist retainer to gather the majority of the materials you need at higher levels though, it does require you to level them yourself as wel though.

I do have to admit I cheat somewhat in getting my ingredients by letting my mains retainers gather most of the higher level ingredients.

When is a good time to level crafting? When you find it interesting and are not averse to either spending a large amount of gil for crafting material, or are willing to become a gatherer as well.

If you feel overwhelmed with story, it makes for a nice break.

Don't force yourself to craft, though. It it feels like a second job, it is a second job. Work at a pace you find fun.

You can start at any time. Crafting and gathering is done rather well in this game and outside of a few cases you can generally obtain the materials needed for gear at the level those materials are needed. So, someone can use level 20 gathering points and fight level 20 monsters to get materials used in level 20 recipes to make level 20 gear. If you're making everything yourself and being self-sufficient, there's little reason not to start right away.

That said, crafting is a time-consuming deal, especially as it helps to have all your crafters and gatherers leveling up together due to the immense amount of overlap. This does mean you'll be devoting less time to your initial main job and unlocking other things you may want, such as endgame weeklies.

When we do start with the crafting and such... do we NEED all of the crafting classes, or can we just take the ones we like?