Culinarian vs Leatherworker

Hello. I've never crafted before, but I was looking to start into it. Currently I have a Monk near cap and a Scholar/Summoner near cap. I like the monk a lot more than I like the Scholar. From what I've seen on the forums 5 materia gryphonskin armor seems to be the best.

I was wondering is it worth leveling leatherworker just for one class?
Is leveling culinarian worth it? Does food provide enough benefit or is it expensive enough where it would be worth making my own?
Is putting 5 materia in gear difficult/expensive?
How difficult is Leatherworker to level and what is a good disciple of the land for it?
How difficult is Culinarian to level?

Botanist will greatly benefit Culinarian. No DoL will benefit leather worker if you don't train other DoH jobs (Armorer, Goldsmith and Weaver in particular).

In any case, you will have to spend a lot of money on materials if you train just a single DoH and a single DoL. Doing leves might help you break even though. Some DoH are better in terms of costs and benefits from DoL, for which Leather Worker is one of the worse.

LTW is difficult to find materials for, but you can level from 20-45 using nothing but Hard and Aldgoat leather.

I leveled leatherworker w/o any support from DoL or any other DoH subs. Though it did take me a few weeks to cap leather I actually made profit doing so and I bought most my mats from NPC's and the market board. The only time I took a loss was spamming leves but it was minimal. Now that I have capped Leather I am working on other DoH and DoL to support it.

I also leveled LTW specifically for MNK. It was nice being able to meld my own gear and craft armor to wear until I got dungeon drops to replace it.

As a 50 CUL and 45 LTW, I would say for a first time crafter you'll probably see more benefit from LTW than CUL on your first go around. You can harvest the hides yourself while leveling your DoW job and CUL takes more materials than any other craft to make their items which will be hard without Botanist/Fishing to support. Neither is difficult to level with leves and general availability of materials on the marketboard.

All of that said, neither is really worth doing if you're solely hoping to give you a significant advantage as a monk. All of the melding to get your armor can easily be done by a FC/LS member for probably free or very cheaply through shouting in any of the main cities once you have the materia (which getting that will be the harder part). I would suggest leveling a crafting class because you're interested in that style of play. Yes it may be nice to be able to repair your own gear, or supply your own food buffs, but even as a crafter that can repair all of his own gear, I find myself more often than not just using the independent mender because it's easier and faster and a lot of the food on the AH is cheap enough that it's usually not worth me taking the time to make it myself.

However, with that all said, I still highly recommend crafting. I find it fun and something different to do, and there is something very gratifying about making your own gear/food and being able to help other players. And if you're willing to spend some time researching the market, it is also fairly easy to profit from the AH with any crafting class. But, I honestly wouldn't recommend anyone that dislikes the crafting style of play, it's just not worth it if you don't like it. Give it a shot, and hope you like it. Always great to see another prospective crafter looking to join the ranks!

LTW isn't too bad to lvl until you hit the leves with Boar materials. If you got lucky with the rewards from leves though, you should have a stack of Boar hide to glide through. Recipes with steel might be expensive though.
I lvled a Miner and a Armorer (I recommend Blacksmith) along side, so it helped.

Cook in FF14 reminds me a lot of chef in LotRO. They both eat up a huge chunk of your inventory in all the parts.

Leatherworker is pretty straight forward. Be prepared to kill a lot of beasties. If Gathering sounds like a cruel job, go leatherworker because Fishing and Botany both play in to Culinary.

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Originally Posted by ReinjiMD

Botanist will greatly benefit Culinarian.

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Would Culinarian be possible to level up just with Botanist? People say one should also pick up Fishing (I am a botanist that does not like to fish).
Thank you.

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Originally Posted by gigi_frana

Would Culinarian be possible to level up just with Botanist? People say one should also pick up Fishing (I am a botanist that does not like to fish).
Thank you.

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Only 15-20% of Culinarian's recipes involve fish or living-in-water creatures. I'm not sure if there's any particular recipe involving fish that is highly desired by the market, but if just for the sake of getting to level 50, you can surely go with Culinary without Fishing.

LTW is probably the easiest of the crafts to level because unlike the other crafts, skin->leather conversion is a 1:1 ratio. Most other crafts also have a secondary cloth/plate step before making the final item, so you essentially need 1/4 of the items to level. That said, if you are looking to make end game gear or repair gears, I don't recommend doing a craft unless you have the time and money to pretty much max out ALL the professions. The end game ilvl 70 gears requires a good set of cross class crafting skills to make HQ, with just one profession, you wont be making your own gears for a very long time.

With just one craft, Culinarian will probably be your best choice. You don't necessary need the best food for add power to your class. The 2nd best will usually do just fine. Like others have said, Botany will be the best DoL to accompany with your Culinarian craft.

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Originally Posted by gigi_frana

Would Culinarian be possible to level up just with Botanist? People say one should also pick up Fishing (I am a botanist that does not like to fish).
Thank you.

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Unfortunately our better meals come from fish. Specially our best selling.

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Originally Posted by Waffles

Unfortunately our better meals come from fish. Specially our best selling.

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I'm just starting out Culinarian, what are the best sellers for the most part?

If you have a friend who is a high level LTW already or are in a Crafting linkshell or free company leather working shouldn't be to bad to level. Just buy hides for cheap then have a friend or someone in your LS/FC turn them into HQ leathers for cheap and then just run leves that's what I have been doing. I did the same for Carp got cheap lumber and ran leves till 50.
A good leather work should be able to make the leathers need for the leves using just NQ hides then maybe HQ alumen on the higher ones so it should be pretty cheap seeing as it's really only the HQ hides that are expensive.

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Originally Posted by WiskheyChuggs

I'm just starting out Culinarian, what are the best sellers for the most part?

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I would say by far the HQ high level crafting foods I have seen people pay as much as 20k for a piece of food lol.

Spamming apple juices as a CUL makes you a ton of money also. Just have some shards handy.