Question for the Crafters

[Ksenia]

I had Weaver to 50 from 1.00 and everything else got leveled in synchronicity in ARR. I did it in synch because I was OCD about having up to date HQ gear that I made myself, through Weaver mostly and I would take each craft to the next set of gear so I only ever had one set in the Armory. It didn't cost me anything to level them. I'd only do HQ turn in's for Leve and usually all I did were triple turn in's.

My biggest throttle was Shards. Because I would make huge amounts of stuff I was using them in the thousands and I hated shard grind. I still do.

[Regart]

I sort went along the same lines of alternating leveling all except I took each to 15 first starting with ALC, CUL, LTW. Why? At 15 I've HQ'd all my gear on my alt by using TT,

[Regart]

WN, or HT depending on what I am crafting. So, on my Alt I'm actually making money while leveling selling HQ gear (stick with DOL/H gear) on the MB. Now I'm going up in levels by 5.

[Gillionaire]

Contrary to common advice given, I would personally go with the following.

Get Spiritbonding and farm some gil. Make sure you have about 5 million + before you start your crafting journey. Because depending on how fast you progress, you'll most likely run out of leve allowances to level them all at once and you'll have to resort to just grinding it out with a good macro and a good item to hopefully make your money back on. Recovering money isn't easy since you'll have trouble getting hq while you're leveling. It is possible, but the turn around won't be fast as you'd like. So you'll sink some gil in by grinding your way to 50.

Get everything to level 50 then get a full set of Culinarian gear, and finish your CUL quest to get your blue frypan. It's ideal to get your quest reward for other classes too, but you CAN skip them and just go for artisan's if you don't have any desire to go 4 stars.
So once your CUL is set, make spicy tomato relishes to get yourself a full Artisan set, yadda yadda.. you get the point. That's when the end-game progression starts.

Now, the reason for your 5 million saved: Once you reach level 50 on everything and can afford your Culinarian's set etc. This is the moment when you'll need crafting accessories and materia. It's quite costly at this point, but they're BiS. Once you get it, you won't need to upgrade anymore. If you jump onto crafting with only 1 million gil. You will definitely be stuck at this point unless you can find a generous FC mate to just supply you with a full set of accessories or something (worth about 1-2m without materia)

[Roth_Trailfinder]

Because depending on how fast you progress, you'll most likely run out of leve allowances to level them all at once and you'll have to resort to just grinding it out with a good macro and a good item to hopefully make your money back on. Recovering money isn't easy since you'll have trouble getting hq while you're leveling.

Actually, keep your classes all at the same general level, make your own HQ gear, and you'll have little to no trouble HQ'ing 70 and 80 durability recipes starting in the lower-mid 20's. You'll need HQ's stats, and the level 15 cross class skills, but you WON'T even need HQ materials to HQ your stuff, unless its a 40 durability recipe, in which case HQ materials will help. Even the Aspected repair recipes are easily HQ'd at their level.

All it takes is an understanding of what you're doing reinforced by actually doing the crafting Log from 1-15, and manually crafting stuff (rather than looking online for some macro or buying from someone else) for your leve hand ins not only helps to cement what's what, it also allows you to play around with other skills as you obtain them to see just how they are, and are not, used.

[Gillionaire]

snip

Sure you could level all classes at the same time, keeping up with your gear all around. But in my experience, it takes a special kind of person to actually do that.. Most would just grind out one by one for simplicity and not bother with upgrading gear every 2-3 levels.

Not saying it doesn't happen, I have a friend doing exactly that, but compared to how fast I got my crafting done just by making the same item over and over and over (tedious, but it is arguably the fastest way without using leves)

I actually spared no costs in leveling up my crafts if it got things done quicker because the way I saw it, faster I got there, faster I would earn it back. I like to think I was right, I surpassed all the crafters in my FC who's been playing for months longer than myself even though I spent a few million more in gearing up than they did just buying things off the MB instead of waiting for the right moment. Considering that as a 1 star+ crafter you can make over million gil a day easily. Extra money you spent is worth it imo.

Besides, if you're grinding, why would you want to make 80 durability items? They usually don't stack, and as such have slower turn around on the MB. I'd rather make few stacks of leather/ingot/cloth even if nq, and take a slight loss than try to make equipments and try to sell dozens of them over the next few weeks.

From my experiences so far, I will say this.
Crafting is not for the timid, you have to spend money to make money. The more you spend, more you'll make.

EDIT: Oh and another thing, I'm not saying to ignore quality, you'll still wanna work on quality when you grind so you get the exp bonus, and that'll usually result in a decent chunk of hq and that's just bonus.

[Yumi_umi]

This far into the game if i were u i'd just spend a few hundreds of gil and a few dozen leves to power level weaver to 50.
Ge and fc bud or a crafter friend tht can hq stuff for u provided that u provide most/ all of the materials.

Honestly a person can pick up quite fast on endgame crafting despite having no prior knowledge to crafting from 1-50.
1) find crafting forums
2) read
3) compare stats and look at materia melding
4) look at rotations close to ur stats
5) go in game and read the tool tips.
6) watch strat videos so u don't die to noob stuff like auto running off the arena in titan fights.

If all else fails, save whatever gil u have left and just wait till 3.0 where a lot of higher gear will become charity leveling gear.

[Roth_Trailfinder]

Besides, if you're grinding, why would you want to make 80 durability items? They usually don't stack, and as such have slower turn around on the MB. I'd rather make few stacks of leather/ingot/cloth even if nq, and take a slight loss than try to make equipments and try to sell dozens of them over the next few weeks.

Crafting gear falls under the 70/80 durability heading. You should be making your own while leveling crafting classes.

However, in terms of the grind, there are two things here : they are usually the Leve hand ins, and you get bonus exp for the first time you craft something.

If you're doing Leves, you want to craft your own (HQ) hand ins. You get more exp that way. If you're grinding, you'll want to make items in the crafting log, as well as making the 40 durability stackables en masse, to maximize your experience intake.

[Aeyis]

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Without the level 50 skills that wont be enough at some point. (level 30 or 35+) You would need atleast an amount of HQ materials. I had some problems HQing items especially in 35+ range, despite having all my classes leveled about equally. (Weaver was already at 50 tho)
These were 80 dura items, and I was using full HQ equipment.
Even the ones I could HQ were not easily done so.

It becomes a lot easier once you get Byregot's Blessing, and Steady Hand II.


As for making your own HQ turn ins, you actually want to avoid that. Simple reason: if you are leveling something like ALC or CULI, the materials needed will likely be more expensive then the ones used in other recipes.
In addition, they might take a lot more materials for a single craft as well; but you don't have the luxury to pick recipes because you need it for your leve.


It is far better to obtain HQ items from a friend or FC crafter that can make them for you, and then simply supplement exp with recipes of your choice.You will spend a lot less materials and be more cost effective that way.

This is best done at the first 2~ levels of the new leve bracket. (each bracket is 5 levels, so craft items for example during levels 45~46~47, for the most exp gained)

[Nyalia]

Crafting 80 durability HQ items with minimal gear is actually not that hard. But, you really want CRP 50 first before anything else. Byregot's Blessing is just that good. With just that skill, you can basically double your final quality on any craft (or at least increase it by 50%). This can take a 20% HQ to an 80% HQ, or a 30% to a 100%.

As said above, Steady Hand II is the next best skill, and you get it much sooner (CUL 37) than the other endgame skills. With just those two, you should be able to HQ whatever you want with the right rotation even with all NQ ingredients. I can confirm that you can HQ anything one star and below at level 50 with newbie stats and just BB - I have a post on how to do that on the forums. You can adapt it a bit for pre-50 rotations, though you might be missing a skill or two (I forget when you learn Great Strides or Standard Synthesis).