So, Crafting...

Is it hard to do, and does it take a while to level up? I'm interested in trying to level one or two classes so I can eventually try my hand at glamour prisms so that a.) I won't need to buy too many of them from the market board when I want to use glamours, and b.) to help supplement gil later down the road. Any advice is appreciated!

Generally, crafting is not too difficult. However, it is heavily recommended that you level all crafting classes up, at least to around level 32 or so.

This is because of the way cross-class skills work (they still use the old 2.0 method where you have to level a class up to unlock skills that can then be used by all other crafting classes). Getting these skills will allow you to more reliably craft HQ items that yield better exp, better stats, and lets you buy cheaper, LQ materials without worry. This is especially important if you level crafters up to very high levels, as only HQ items will sell.

You will also want to level up your desynthesis skills so you can get mats for items like primal weapon glamours.

If you are only looking to craft glamour prisms, then getting your main crafters to lv.50 is easy enough. However, the price will vary depending on whether or not you have access to a house (which can help you get cheap mats for the first 20 levels).

Also consider leveling up your retainers so they can obtain mats, such as leather, cloth, or ore/ingots for you.

There are several ways of leveling:
The first, is to use guildleves and simply turn in the requested items. There is generally little to no need to use your leve points on anything except craft/gather classes (with dungeon runs and PotD generally way more cost effective). If you have the gil to spare, you can simply buy the requested item and turn them in. You do not need to craft the items, although I will warn you it can get prohibitively expensive. You get double the EXP if the item is HQ.

Second, you can turn in items requested by your Grand Company. When you talk to the provisioner, they will accept items that you craft, gather, or get from dungeons in exchange for grand company seals. If you turn in items you have crafted or gathered, you also get a lot of exp for the related crafter/gatherer class that makes the item. You can simply buy and turn them in, or make them yourself. You also get double the EXP if the items are HQ.

Third, is to use the Ixali and Moogle beast tribe quests. These ask you to turn in very easy and cheap items. All you really need is patience (you can only do 3 a day for each tribe, and they do require you to run around the map a little). They give a lot of good experience. You can't trade for these, so these items must be made by you yourself. However, they are not difficult to make and do not gain any benefit for being HQ

Lastly, if you are serious about crafting end-game gear, you will want to do collectables. This will let you unlock recipes later on.

Getting to level 50 for glamours can be done relatively quickly, although you may have to expend a large amount of gil to do it within two weeks. If you don't have a full stack of 100 leves, it might take a little longer as you use your beast quests, retainers, and GC to gain exp and mats.

you need to level all crafts and gathers to 70 to make the best of that content. There are a lot of crafts that require multiple crafting jobs to craft multiple items to create one specific item or gear. is it worth it?... i think so but it takes a lot of time to level and gear up to make the most of end game crafting. I highly recommend checking out crafting and gathering guides on youtube and other sites to get the best out of crafting. It can be a lot of fun and very rewarding if you learn the best rotations.

I also recommend leveling up miner and btn before tackling crafting as this will save you a lot of gil in the long run.

It's quite an investment yeah, considering what it ultimately brings to the table. Getting to the level required to glamour prisms isn't too tedious and can probably be done fairly quickly just grinding items with a friendly recipe. Crafting is only really tedious when you need to gear up at each major interval 50/60/70. The latter not too bad at the moment, but the transition from base game to expansion, or expansion to expansion is fairly nasty. I personally wouldn't even bother investing the full way if you don't plan to craft fairly frequently. I'm also inclined to say that even power levelling from 50-60 you can make gil rather than lose it. You could comfortably just level to 50, work up to Talan gear, sell prisms, furniture, and relic items then you'd be set for making a comfortable amount of gil.

Crafting is in a good spot for new players right now, to where it's fairly cheap, and there's something there for everyone. Not much more unique can be said considering what was added by the other posters, but if you want to check out stuff more in depth, I'd check out Mithrie's guide for new players, it's really good 1-50. Or even Caimie Tsukino's crafting guide, if you prefer the written. Though hers is more written and a little theory I guess, but a really good rundown of each of the abilities

Leveling crafting takes an investment. You can either invest time and level cheaply, or you can invest gil and level more quickly. Is it hard to do? Certain recipes at certain levels with certain equipment can definitely be hard, but the overall process isnt that bad. First of all, figure out if you like the crafting minigame. If making things ends up feeling painful or tedious then it probly isnt worth the greater investment. You seem interested in glamour prisms and i see you have RDM listed as a class. So why not start by leveling weaver a little? They would make the prisms for a lot of your gear afterall.

So go to the weaver guild in Ul Dah and meet Redolent Rose(or whatever his name is). Join the guild and unlock the class. Next to the receptionist is a "guild supplier". This NPC sells all(or almost all) the materials you need to make recipes up to roughly level 15. Open your recipe book and try to make each recipe once. Most people can level up to 15 in around an hour, and that makes a good goal for your first session(stopping to do the class quests at 5 and 10 will also give you some more gear to use). This should give you a taste of crafting. If you dont like it, it likely wont get better for you and youve now reached a good point to stop. If you do like it youve reached an important milestone - level 15 is where you get your first cross class skills for crafting.

It is entirely possible to only level the crafting classes you like, but by not having the right skills to use the process becomes a lot harder and more luck dependent. So basically everyone will tell you to level everything up at least until you get the important skills. Every class gets a useful skill at 15(though some are better then others), so spending 45-60 mins at each guild(like you just did with weaver) is an easy enough project to start with. The next set of CC skills comes at level 37, and only Culinarian has one that is useful right away. The "powerful" CC skills come at 50, with almost all of them being great in their own way. The final set of CC skills are at 54, and those are a special batch(each of them in its own way is aimed at making it easier to finish super long recipes, in the end the GSM and CUL are the ones actually used most often). Level 50 is where the prism recipes are, so getting all the classes that far means you could make all of the prisms you need plus have the CC skills you want to make a go at HQ gear to use/sell.

So all of this sounds like a lot of work. This is where i echo back to what the previous respondents have said. Once you do your level 15 romp at the crafting guilds, its time to look at your leveling options. If you havent already, unlock the Ixali beast tribe right away. Doing the pre-quests to work with the moogles is also a good idea. You will be able to do up to 12 ixali quests a day at high faction levels, and this tribe is an excellent way to level your classes up to 50(beyond 50 it doesnt give meaningful exp). The quests provide the materials you need, and if you mess up you can just ask them to give you more(as many times as needed). You get exp for the crafting class you turn the quest items in with, so if one of your classes gets ahead you can use it to more easily make everything, then turn the stuff in on the class needing the exp. The moogles are the same(though they have a 3/6 quest per day limit), but for leveling from 50-60(again, no meaninful exp after that). In addition to the tribes you want to do your GC turnins when you can, and you can always do some leves(and after level 50 collectables) to supplement your leveling needs. And finally, if you take the full crafting plunge then spending a bit of time leveling the gathering roles will save you millions upon millions of gil in the long run.

Thank you all for the great advice! That's definitely plenty for me to go off of for a good start, I think. I'll give things a shot and see how it goes.

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Originally Posted by Anova

it is heavily recommended that you level all crafting classes up, at least to around level 32 or so.
This is because of the way cross-class skills work

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For most classes, the important cross-class skills come at levels 15 and 50, plus Culinarian has a good one at 37. I'd recommend taking them all to 15 for that first set of skills, and perhaps CUL to 37, then it's ok to focus on a favorite or two for a while. (If you want to get into endgame crafting, and making any difficult stuff, you'll eventually need all of them leveled all the way, but just for simple things like glamour prisms you wouldn't.)

If you're leveling the fast but expensive way, materials costs might not be so much of an issue for you. But if you want to level the slow but cheap way, by making all your own stuff, another benefit of leveling multiple classes together is you can make your own materials and not be stuck paying market board prices for them. (Vendors only sell mats for about the first 15-20 levels worth of recipes. After that you'll need stuff that somebody crafted and it's a lot cheaper if that somebody is yourself.) Some classes are more tied together by materials needed than others. Weaver and Leatherworker, for instance, each use a lot of each other's mats, so leveling those two together is helpful. Culinarian, on the other hand, is almost entirely independent of the others in terms of materials, and Alchemist mostly so.

Another perk of crafting is repairing your gear. To repair a piece of gear you need the appropriate crafting class (e.g. WVR for cloth armour or ARM for plate armour) to within 10 levels of the gear's minimum equip level. So a level 60 WVR could repair any cloth gear you can wear at level 70. For the classes you're taking to 50 for prism recipes, taking them another 10 levels for repairs might be worthwhile.

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Originally Posted by Anova

... Ixali and Moogle beast tribe quests. ... you can only do 3 a day for each tribe...

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For Ixal, it's up to 12 a day (once you've ranked up enough to be offered several tiers of quests).

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

Another perk of crafting is repairing your gear. To repair a piece of gear you need the appropriate crafting class (e.g. WVR for cloth armour or ARM for plate armour) to within 10 levels of the gear's minimum equip level. So a level 60 WVR could repair any cloth gear you can wear at level 70. For the classes you're taking to 50 for prism recipes, taking them another 10 levels for repairs might be worthwhile.

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Ohh, that's good to know about the repairs! Thanks for the tip!

Another benefit if you choose to level everything at the same time/speed. You can usually use the same equipment(other then tools) for all 8 classes. So getting a good shirt for your weaver means(95% of the time) that your goldsmith and leatherworker got an upgrade too. You can use that strategy with miner botanist and fisher too. Most DoL gear is just that - DoL rather then class specific.

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Originally Posted by Frizze

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I think I'm starting to see that now, which is definitely helpful. I got a start on things last night, and I got Weaver and Goldsmith a bit past lvl 15. Also got Goldsmith high enough to unlock the materia melding since that could be useful later, after I've leveled things a bit more at least. I'll probably look into Leatherworking next and go from there. I also see that once I get everything leveled up a bit I should be able to create components to make up Orchestrion rolls using the faded copies too, which would be a nice bonus.

Yup, more music for your orchestrion(or to sell) is nice. Carpenters make the scrolls they go on, alchemists make the ink and the actual music roll. Several classes(LTW and ARM especially) make extra bardings so you have more options for dressing up your chocobo(or to sell). Several classes(WVR has the most) make extra minions you can summon(or sell). Every class(even CUL) has at least a couple furniture-type items they can make for house decorating. If you look through all the lists, there are fun or useful recipes for each class. One thing to keep in mind with melding in particular though is that you can only meld things for the classes you have leveled up. A level 70 GSM(who in this instance somehow didnt level anything else) can meld any GSM items, but they cant meld even level 15 blacksmith items. So this is another case where leveling multiple classes makes it easier on you. When it comes time to actually meld something the game just checks if you have the right class at the right level, so you wont need to actively swap when the time comes.

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Originally Posted by ChaoticCrimson

Is it hard to do, and does it take a while to level up? I'm interested in trying to level one or two classes so I can eventually try my hand at glamour prisms so that a.) I won't need to buy too many of them from the market board when I want to use glamours, and b.) to help supplement gil later down the road. Any advice is appreciated!

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to be completely frank id recommend you level up all the disciple of hand since theyre very much connected to each other in terms of recipe