Is it worth to level Crafting/Gathering professions while leveling?

Specifically your first class en route to 70?

It seems like it's a very long, involved deal (almost to the point of going through the MSQ as your first class, if not more so).

Is there any incentive to doing so, or should I just wait until I'm at 70 with one of the DoW or DoM?

The game provides all the gear you will need for your first class / job. Some of the gear (mostly right side jewelery) is hidden behind side quests. From lv1 - 49, you can get better gear from crafting HQ than the game provides but this usually accounts for like 2-3 stat points per gear piece which is pretty insignificant.

That being said, when I played the game, I levelled all my crafter / gathers / and multiple DoW/DoM at the same time. I wanted to try everything. I was 100% self sufficient until I was forced to do party content near the end game to advance my character. Would I do it the same again? I would power one DoW /DoM with the MSQ, then every 10 levels or so I would catch up my DoH / DoLs. If I left them until I reached 70, it would feel like such a daunting task that I would not do it.

I love the crafting mini-game. Crafting and Gathering does take time. The carrot of optional near self-sufficiency at the end is pretty great though.

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Originally Posted by ChameleonMS

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And what professions would you recommend starting with for an RDM? Or does it really matter?

Weaver, Leatherworker and Goldsmith will make 95% of all gear you are ever going to use. Due to nature of the crafting cross class system, you are going want, if not need to get other DoH to lv50.

Crafting for Beginners: (long)

With release of Stormblood, the single crafter has become viable but the single crafter success is limited by a few factors.
1. The skills which make single crafting viable are not learned until you pass 60.
2. The cross class skills (lv15, 37 and 50) are frequently still stronger than their single DoH counter parts.
3. There are some pretty hefty gear / difficulty jumps between 50-51 and again between 60-61.

Always attempt to achieve as much Quality as possible because your XP increases greatly for quality.
e.g. A craft done at 0% quality will earn 100xp, if you can increase the quality to 100%, 300xp will be granted. A 200% additional xp bonus. It is a non-linear sliding scale down for the XP.

My advice will focus on OMNI crafter (all 8 DoH) perspective.
First get all your crafters to 15 to gain access to all basic cross crafting skills.
Levelling from 1 - 15 is pretty simple, complete your crafter log for first time bonus and nearly all the materials you will need are purchasable from vendors. If you have membership in an Free Company, the Materials Supplier has nearly everything you need for all crafts at very cheap prices.
From this point until level 50 try and level all your crafting class equally. Most crafting gear is shared by all DoH classes.
Then get them all to 50 (CUL and GSM 54) to gain access to full set cross class crafting skills. These skills allow you to reliably make High Quality (HQ) items with Normal Quality (NQ) materials.

Level 15 cross class skills:
ALC - Tricks of the Trade
CUL - Hasty Touch
BSM - Ingenuity (repalced by Ingenuity II at lv50)
WVR - Careful Synthesis (replaced by Careful Synthesis II/III at lv50/62)
ARM - Rapid Synthesis (replaced by native Skill Rapid Synthesis II at lv63)
CRP - Rumination (replaced by Byregot's Blessing/Brow at lv50/51)
LTW - Waste Not (replaced by Prudent Touch at lv66)
GMS - Manipulation (slightly less expensive alternative to Master's Mend)

Level 37 cross class skills:
CUL - Steady Hand II
GMS - Flawless Synthesis (which until 3.2 was affectionately class Useless Synthesis. Maker's Mark has given this skill purpose)

Level 50 cross class skills:
ALC - Comfort Zone
ARM - Piece by Piece (Useful for very high level crafting with a lot of difficulty; two uses is 50% completion a third use is gear dependent)
BSM - Ingenuity II
CRP - Byregot's Blessing
CUL - Reclaim
GMS - Innovation
LTW - Waste Not II (Replaced by Manipulation II lv65)
WVR - Careful Synthesis II (Replace by Careful Synthesis III if you have the CP)


Levelling all your DoH classes is expensive, you pay with time or GIL.
Lower Gil with higher time, if you gather your own materials.
Truck loads more Gil, with way less time, if you buy your materials from the market board. Many, many base materials can be purchase from in game vendors at significantly lower prices than the Market Board.
Do the Beast Tribes to unlock additional vendors and materials.

To assist in your crafter leveling the Ixal Beast Tribe is available after completing the quest In Pursuit of the Past.
It unlocks the quest A Bad Bladder. This is available after lv41.

To further assist you, Moogle Beast Tribe is available after completing the quest Laying the First Brick.
It unlocks the quest Tricks and Stones. This is available after lv53.


DoW Gil Guide, you need GIL to pay for your crafting. At least until you have the skills to make items HQ that population wants to buy from you.
Maps are another great source of income:
Timeworn Dragonskin maps open The Aquapolis and Timeworn Gazelleskin maps open The Lost Canals of Uznair

References:
Caimie's Crafting Guide something every crafter should read at least once.
Crafting Simulator for practising different rotations without burning your materials. This is fan generated site so the accuracy of the results can be a little suspect from time to time. It is generally pretty accurate.

End game gathering from timed nodes:
FFXIV Clock
Unspoiled Nodes
Fisher Reference.
Emphemial Nodes gathering rotation. This rotation after you get Impulsive Appraisal II and get good, pretty much removes the RNG from it.

Desynthesis Guide a source of rare materials for the very ambitious.

End game Gear setups:
Ariyala Toolkit


Crafting HQ follows some basis rules:
1. Turn on Inner Quiet to start
Each successful quality touch will increase your Inner Quiet stacks. Each increase makes your next quality touch stronger by 20%. Inner Quiet has no effect on completion.

2. Start your craft by getting your completion to within one Synthesis of 100%, then work on quality.
Using skills such Muscle Memory, Piece by Piece or Rapid Synthesis I/II for very large completion gains. These are needed for high level crafting.

3. Use skills to restore/conserve your CP.
Comfort Zone, costs 66 CP but over 10 steps, restores 80, thus, +14 effect.
Hasty Touch and Rapid Synthesis, costs 0 CP as the expense of RNG.
Tricks of the Trade, restores 20 CP for each use.

4. Use skills to buff your skills.
Steady Hand (22 CP), Steady Hand II (25 CP), increase reliability of your actions.
E.g. Pop Steady Hand II, the use Hasty Touch multiple times. This will give you an 80% success rate on 5 quality touches costing 0 CP.
Great Strides doubles your next touch effectiveness.
Innovation increases your skill for up to 3 touches.

Ineguity I/II is generally only required for crafts above your own level. Generally these the * crafts for each tier. Recepies in the Master Books.

5. Use skills to restore/conserve your Durability.
Masters Mend I/II, Manipulation I/II, Waste Not I/II
For Durability 70/80 crafts, Master Mend II is the most efficient until you reach lv65 have access to Manipulation II
For Durability 35/40 crafts, Manipulation is most efficient, followed very closely by Masters Mend.

6a. Before you have Byregot's Blessing/Brow (lv50/51), you should be using Rumination to restore CP for a couple of extra touches.
6b. After you have Byregot's Blessing/Brow. Use Byregot's Blessing/Brow for an enormous quality jump.
E.g. SH, Ingenuity II, Innovation, Basic Touch, Great Strides, Byregot's Blessing.

Only question I really have to say is, do you like crafting? Cause honestly at your level there's not much intensive for doing it for gear (free HQ gear from MSQ). Doing it for furniture or specific glamour items is another story however, as these can get you some major dosh for your time invested in crafting. But if you enjoy crafting, go nuts! Don't let ChameleonMS' post intimidate ya, you can casually craft without requiring every single class.

Personally, I say yes, for the sake of materials. Mob drops from level 56 range are typically useful for 56ish gear across the board. Unless you want to spend the gil (which in theory you may be able to recoup if you craft enough to sell), you'll want to keep gatherers up with your crafters to get the supplies you need to craft, to be able to craft better gear to gather, to gather better materials to craft, etc.

To a certain extent, though, crafting and gathering is somewhat independent from everything post-50. They help each other out, but it doesn't really do much for combat classes. Especially now that leveling dungeons give you guaranteed drops for your job, it's plenty easy to gear up on dungeon gear alone. Even more so considering how far Augmented Ironworks can take you before you upgrade to Shire.

Summation: Craft and gather if you enjoy it. Depends on what you expect to get out of the process.

Just a short answer. Better to level up all crafters at the same time. Every class has some cross-class skills that are needed for later crafts. And level up gatherers too, or the whole "way to lv70" will be a "way to bankrupt". Some mats are really expensive on the MB, even if not rare at all.

I just leveled all DoL and DoH based on materials. Cross traits make things a lot better when leveling, and helps out repairing gear and materia melding later on. Also your retainers levels are based on what you have level up. Easiest way to make gil as well. If you raise a TANK role job first just get through the story and use dungeon gear. Once your able to go HQ or tome gear.

Even if you do not like it per say i would level them. You can meld and repair your own gear. That in itself was good enough for me, plus making extra gil is always nice

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Originally Posted by Maero

Even if you do not like it per say i would level them. You can meld and repair your own gear. That in itself was good enough for me, plus making extra gil is always nice

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I'll keep that in mind. What would the best profession be purely from an income perspective?

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Originally Posted by NewAgeDoom

What would the best profession be purely from an income perspective?

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In my opinion, and this is only once you reach the higher levels due to the recipes, it would be either Alchemist or Culinarian for the consumables that people use for raids(granted, most raid groups likely have specialists that create those items for the group already)

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Originally Posted by NewAgeDoom

I'll keep that in mind. What would the best profession be purely from an income perspective?

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Originally Posted by Avatre

In my opinion, and this is only once you reach the higher levels due to the recipes, it would be either Alchemist or Culinarian

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Alchemist and Culinarian are the most consistent for income, the rest can all be done for some cash too though. One thing to keep in mind is that people can be rather lazy, so anything you can't buy from an npc you can sell on the market board for a profit. Not to mention there'll always be a need for glamor prisms, so a few low level crafters can get you some easy dosh.

You can also start getting cash from level one of non-fishing gathering since shards are needed for EVERYTHING below 50, including a few random things that are above. Course you can gather shards easier from skills by leveling up or with retainers or housing, but it's still something you can do from the start of gathering.

Also worth noting: in ARR you can complete most MSQ and sidequests as a DoH/DoL (so long as you're at the correct level for the quest) and receive the reward EXP into that class. You don't need to have it equipped the whole time, just for the final step of talking to the person with the green "complete quest" marker.

They 'fixed' this in Heavensward, but it still works for ARR content.

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Originally Posted by NewAgeDoom

What would the best profession be purely from an income perspective?

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From a purely income perspective, miner and botanist cant be beat. You go out into the woods and hit a rock with a hammer(or a tree with an ax), and you come back to town with stuff to sell. Your only expense is repairs and gear upgrades. The crafting classes also need repairs and upgrades, but they also need to have other materials to make their goods. Carpenter cant make a bow without some wood, armorsmith cant make a breastplate without some metal. You can go hit a tree and rock to get that wood and metal. The key to profit is spending a little time learning your servers market to know which materials are worth getting.

If you prefer to make rather then find, any crafting class can turn a profit. Use the same market research principal. As a lower level crafter, youre usually better off selling materials rather then finished goods. So you wouldnt make a bow to sell, youd process the logs into lumber and sell those(a blacksmith selling metal ingots is another example). Higher level and lazy crafters will often just buy the intermediate stuff if its too annoying to make, so theres a market just waiting to be discovered. You can also quest target. If you know that one of the level 25 leves requires ______, make some and sell them(with a good markup of course - sell in the quantity that the quest asks for for quickest sales) to people who would rather buy their levels then earn them.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

They 'fixed' this in Heavensward, but it still works for ARR content.

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In such a way that you had to be the right classification of job, but could do the quest as a level 70 WAR, and claim the EXP on an appropriately leveled anything else(DoW/DoM).
I still do my moogle quests on CUL(which is the only 70 I have for crafters) and claim the EXP on a sub-60 class.

But with SB, you have to complete the quests as the class you started it as.

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Originally Posted by Frizze

As a lower level crafter, youre usually better off selling materials rather then finished goods.

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Besides typically selling at a nice steady rate, those intermediate materials also have the advantage of being stackable. If you're going to craft a whole bunch of stuff to sell, gear that takes up a slot per item will eat up inventory slots and marketboard slots annoyingly fast, whereas you can mass produce things like lumber or ingots, then sell them off gradually. (Culinarians and Alchemists have some advantage here, since meals and potions are also stackable, even in their finished form.)

As others have said Culinarian is always a sure bet as players that raid often purchase stuff and even alchemist i would say