Crafting Noob Questions

Just picked the game up a couple weeks ago and I've decided that I need to level crafting up so I'm able to put extra materia in my gear that the materia mender won't put in there. So I have a few questions about crafting in general.

1. What is the best food to use when you craft? I'm usually crafting DoH tools every chance they come up from the professions as they pop up I can make them. I do the same with DoH armor too. There are a few instances where I'll craft DoM gear for myself to wear later & DoW gear for my boyfriend to wear now/later too. I always try for HQ gear since its pretty damn good gear to have.
   
2. Is there a better exp boost than the Company-issue Engineering Manual that I can get? It seems like the 50% boost is used up well before the 3 hours the buff is supposed to last because it only gives upto 50K bonus exp. If so, where would I get it from, what's it's name, and how much does it cost?
   
3. Are there any guides you can recommend to help someone to powerlevel crafting? I'd like to do it the most cost effective way possible.
   
4. What stats would you recommend putting into my gear from materia? I know gear has caps for each piece but since materia melding can get to the point where it is 10% or less to put in all the materia to max it out, it kinda makes no sense to go for the cap on each piece while leveling up professions.
   
5. Last thing is, is the ability "Observe" - Do nothing for one step really worth having on your toolbar? I don't see a point in doing nothing for one step. Maybe its because I haven't got to a higher level but to me it seems like a waste of a skill/slot.
   
6. Any tips or advice you can give for professions?

I'll try to answer to the best of my knowledge, though I'm sure other crafters will give you better advice.

1. If you're still levelling, any cheap food will do. I'd go for stone soup from the gold saucer for the bonus to CP.

2. Once you unlock collectibles there are better engineering manuals to buy from scrips, but before that I don't think so. There's also one type you can get from squadrons once you unlock them for a flat 20% bonus over 2 hours. Other than those, yoi can try asking your FC leadership for the company action that gives bonus crafting xp.

3. Try looking for Camie's guides. They may be a bit outdated but otherwise they're great. For general levelling advice, do GC turn-ins, leves, either repeating or travelling ones, and once unlocked beast tribes and custom deliveries.

4. If you're keeping you gear updated, go for the most CP you can get, it will make the biggest impact.

5. At low level observe can be useful to skip a poor quality step after an excellent, but it's otherwise not really worth it. Later you'll learn skills that combo off of it and it will get much more interesting.

6. BSM is useful since it makes the tools for most professions, and the rest are crafted by professions needing BSM tools. Most of the gear will come from WVR. And in general it's a good idea to level everything at roughly the same rate to get cross-class skills, though that's less important these days. Until you unlock better skills, Hasty touch is your unreliable best friend, if combined with Steady Hand (II).

Hope this helps!

1 : Any cheap food, but honestly, at 3% it won’t amount to much. Early on, its very difficult to do so outside of being lucky, but going from 0 Quality to max Quality within the crafting (IE - Quality from HQ materials does not count towards this; in fact, Quality from HQ materials reduces this) you get 300% bonus exp, or four times the base exp! 3% is paltry compared to this. Even the 50% from Rested is paltry compared to it.

2 : those manuals are awesome for fast crafting. Make a leather/ingot/thread, then Quick Synth about 20 of the things per Manual. There are three levels of manuals, I believe the first level manual (1-50) is from the Grand Company vendor for a small sum of GC Seals.

3 : power leveling crafting, and doing it the most-gil-efficient way, are pretty much contradictory.

The most gil-efficient way is to gather all the materials yourself and to make everything once, two or three times if it is something that you can use yourself, or for a Leve. There is a lot of experience waiting in the Crafting Log that most people ignore in favor of faster leveling practices. Selling what you make that you don’t need to use can actually turn a profit while crafting, even if you buy a few materials.

The fastest way to level is the most expensive : buy HQ stuff off of the board to hand in for Leves. Unfortunately, you only get 3 Leve Allownces every 12 hours, so once you’ve burned those up, it takes some time to rebuild a suitable supply. The Leve Allowance cap is 100, you’ll never have more Leve Allowances than that.

3 : Camie’s guides are pretty good from what I remember, but I don’t know whether she’s been keeping the older ones up to date with the occasional changes that occur (such as the pretty big ones with Shadowbringers, removing Steady Hands 2 and Byregot’s Blessing from the Cross Class list and making unique versions for each class).

4 : it is generally best to avoid melding materia to leveling gear overall. The gear doesn’t tend to last all that long. In my experience, raising all the classes up together usually fully spiritbonds the gear, leaving only the MH/OH tools under 100%. With the ability to remove materia from gear, melding some CP to the gear’s open slots is not a bad idea, you just have to remember to remove it before converting the gear itself to materia. As long as you are using the highest level HQ gear that you can, however, melding while leveling is NOT necessary.

5 : RNageo answered this best.

6 : Many of the level 15 Cross Class moves are valuable to have. I’d suggest taking each class to 15 specifically for that move. Then take them up based on materials, or in 5 level increments. Once you reach expansion levels (51+) materials increments will only be two-three levels but you’ll need a lot of those materials within those levels. So, I’d suggest using Retainers to help you get your materials. Combat retainerscan get your skins and various odds and ends. Miners Botanists andFishing retainers can get those types of materials. ITs your choice what retainers to use, though I’d suggest combat retainers if you ar only using two. You don’t tend to need a lot of fish, and while you do need a lot of ores and plant materials, those are usually easier to gather in bulk than mob drops.

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Originally Posted by Roth_Trailfinder

4 : it is generally best to avoid melding materia to leveling gear overall. The gear doesn’t tend to last all that long. In my experience, raising all the classes up together usually fully spiritbonds the gear, leaving only the MH/OH tools under 100%. With the ability to remove materia from gear, melding some CP to the gear’s open slots is not a bad idea, you just have to remember to remove it before converting the gear itself to materia. As long as you are using the highest level HQ gear that you can, however, melding while leveling is NOT necessary.

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While I agree that materia is not all that important while leveling, there is no point in NOT melding materia to your gear if you have the materia and the needed crafter level.
Tier I-VI materia can be removed with 100% chance, so it can always be reused, and having it melded increases your spiritbond speed as well as give you some extra stats.

Ill jusy add onto question 1 and 4 as the rest have been succinctly answered.

1. Stone soup is good if youre going for quality over quantity, but if you feel you need to beef up before a particularly difficult craft, try and get whatever gives the most cp without breaking the bank.

4. While you dont need to meld before endgame, cp helps the most. At endgame, melds normally have max cp with enough craftsmanship and control to meet the minimum requirements, then getting the kind of stats they want either by gut feeling or mathing it out. I went ham on control for stormblood and did fine.

Caimie Tsukino's guide:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...VBoHPkJE/edit#

As stated outdated in spots, but there is none better.

In general max CPs when melding.