A word to lvl 60 crafters who don't quite understand crafting yet

[MN_14]

I was confused at first when it came to crafting, but after reading the guides and leveling all my crafters (all are around 57-59), I am starting to understand them alot better. I have so far never used any macros and been able to HQ craft stuff with no difficulties. My question to the experienced crafters is: When is the best time to start using macros?

If you want to be an effective crafter, never.

If you're overgeared, they will work fine for scrip turn ins and other easier starred recipes. For the latest 4* crafts, they also work but everything will take 3x as long since you have to run the macro for a lot of intermediate materials. If you’re effective, you should be able to NQ all of the intermediate materials and then do one manual synthesis for the final product. You only have to craft from 0-13187, but from all NQ you should be able to build up 13400-15000 quality on 70%+ of your synths. You’ll be a few hundred quality short on most of the remaining 20-30% synths, but that’s enough for 91%+.

[Gemina]

... It is, admittedly, a bit boring, hand-crafting several dozen Mythril Ingots, spending hours just making mats to get to the gear, and I'd love if I could just easy-mode it some days. But I guess some of that is just the struggle of being a competent crafter not trying to rush things. I'd rather this than just jumping to the end and not understanding how the skills can all fit together.

Wait 'till you get to Mythrite ingots

In all seriousness though, this is what makes crafting fun and engaging. Gathering your mats together on your own is indeed time consuming, but with crafting, you get out what you put in. And the more time you put in, the better you get at it and the more self-sufficient you become. The grindy uphill method might be slow, but I find that it is the superior way to go if you want to live up to the praise the guildmasters give you.

I get so much exp from crafting my own mats for the recipes I need for quests, turn-ins, and upgrades that I have next to zero need for leves. The only time I use them is after I have done all of those things, and I still need 1 to 1.5 levels to meet the next class quest requirement. Even then, I craft those items too instead of buying them or the mats off the MB, further shortening my need for leves.

My crafters are 53-54, and it'll be at least another month before they are all at 60. But I know how to craft. I have the knowledge I need to proceed going forward, and the aptitude to pick up the upcoming skills and challenges without having to ask for macros or rotations from those who have also done things this way. Props to you good sir for taking the path of most resitance!

[Caimie_Tsukino]

During the Maker’s Mark phase, one common practice is to avoid the use of tricks of the trade if SH is up (for pbp). Does this make sense statistically? Is it worth sacrificing 20 CP just so that your 90% success rate of landing FS is increased to 100? Even if you have one extra FS miss, is it detrimental?

I am glad you brought this up. I ALWAYS take at least 1 Trick of Trade during that first SH if available

The biggest reason for that SH to be up isn't for the Flawless Syn anyway. It is for the PBP. This is because PBP cost 15 CP and 10 durab each, so failing 1 can be quite painful, and failing twice is detrimental. The SH ensures that this does not happen. As for FS, you got like 10 naked FS after the SH anyway, and it's expected to fail a few.

To me, the biggest concern is balancing 3 things: (1) amount of ToT taken, (2) using MaMa steps for CP consuming steps so that you have more room to take ToT, and (3) still having enough FS to get sufficient progress done. Basically, before you take a ToT during MaMa, you ask yourself, do you have room for CP (especially if you already activated CZ, would the last few steps of CZ be wasted?)? If there is room, take the ToT. After taking the ToT, can you create another room for another ToT by sacrificing a MaMa step for a CP-consuming step (usually Inner Quiet) as well as another MaMa step for an anticipated ToT in the near future? I think this sort of complex management is quite fun

[Caimie_Tsukino]

My question to the experienced crafters is: When is the best time to start using macros?

This is an excellent question. Judging by the way you described yourself, I think you are ready for macros already.

Personally, I do not think macro is just a easy money-making tool. I think macros are more than that. AFTER a macro is completed, it is purely a tool to makes things easier. It allows you to mass-produce crafted mats like nuggets or ingots in great numbers, which is awesome for money-making or for your own crafting purposes. It also allows you to easily make collectable items for blue scrips and weekly red scrips. But BEFORE you have your macro perfected, the process of making your own perfect macro that fits you alone can be a fun process which requires a lot of thoughts. This is particularly true for "Single-button macros", which means you only have 15 lines to work with (each macro in this game can only have 15 actions at most). So it is quite an art! You obviously need very strong stats, but that is not enough. You will still need to think hard in order to generate a strong 1-button macro that works well. 2-button macros have much looser requirements on the number of actions, but it can still be very useful. For example, I personally built myself a 2-button macro while I was leveling my classes. This way, I don't have to repeated manual craft something to level up. Instead, I can spam 2 buttons to level up without thinking too much. For new crafters who are not familiar with how to manual craft, this will be a disaster, as it kills the chance for the person to learn. But for experienced crafters, this can take away the pain of boredom.

For instance, there was a time when a random crafter and I were crafting the exact same CUL item for red scrips at Idylshire. He was in a full set of Ironworks, while I had lower stats. But I used a 15-steps 1-button macro to make my items, while he had to craft his heart out manually with many many steps which I thought were unnecessary (especially because I used Muscle Memory while he used MaMa). I knew some of my items did not reach full bar of quality, so they didn't get the maximum amount of possible red scrips, but they were good enough for me. And I ended up finishing the job much faster than the random crafter. I actually felt really proud of myself developing that macro.

If you want to be an effective crafter, never.

Well, ok. Yes, macros are NEVER truly optimizing your own powers to make something. On that sense, they're definitely "not as effective as" manual crafting, for manual crafting will always give more power. However, macros can be "effective" on the sense that you can now shorten a craft, which you normally may use 25-35 steps, to something as short as 15 steps. Yes, the chance of HQ may be a bit lower, but a macro can be "more effective than" manual crafting if it produces HQ products twice as fast as manual crafting...

[MN_14]

Well, ok. Yes, macros are NEVER truly optimizing your own powers to make something. On that sense, they're definitely "not as effective as" manual crafting, for manual crafting will always give more power. However, macros can be "effective" on the sense that you can now shorten a craft, which you normally may use 25-35 steps, to something as short as 15 steps. Yes, the chance of HQ may be a bit lower, but a macro can be "more effective than" manual crafting if it produces HQ products twice as fast as manual crafting...

That's really true only where you're already overgeared. If you aren't (ie. 4*), each individual craft is shorter with macros but your HQ rates are much lower. You'd end up spending more time macro-ing intermediate mats because you have to run it over and over to prepare HQ materials for higher starting quality for the final craft. With a manual method, you cut out the process of HQing intermediate materials completely and it's much faster overall.

Edit: Forgot to consider the crafted material market. Yes, macros are useful for crafting and selling those but I think you'd be much better off selling 4* gear or weapons if you're spending the time to craft so much.

[MN_14]

To me, the biggest concern is balancing 3 things: (1) amount of ToT taken, (2) using MaMa steps for CP consuming steps so that you have more room to take ToT, and (3) still having enough FS to get sufficient progress done. Basically, before you take a ToT during MaMa, you ask yourself, do you have room for CP (especially if you already activated CZ, would the last few steps of CZ be wasted?)? If there is room, take the ToT. After taking the ToT, can you create another room for another ToT by sacrificing a MaMa step for a CP-consuming step (usually Inner Quiet) as well as another MaMa step for an anticipated ToT in the near future? I think this sort of complex management is quite fun

That's right. If you've maxed the amount of CP that you can get and missed enough FS that you'll need an extra progress step anyways, spend down CP to make room for additional tricks of the trade use.

[Caimie_Tsukino]

That calculator was actually offered to me as a small wee craftling. I use that calculator to this day to make sure I can have the most successful synth. YET, I still put in the time to read guides and my tooltips. If the calculator gave me a rotation I would look at the skills description, learning why the calculator thought this was the best way to go. So I have to disagree when you say the calculator doesn't help newbies.

That is true. Someone CAN learn on a calculator to understand how different skills contribute to the crafting process. I guess I was never a big fan of calculators because it ignores conditions. But aside from that, calculators are very nice when someone is trying to formulate a rotation.

However, if the newbie does not even bother to read what each crafting skill does, I don't think the calculator would offer much help... But of course, in that case, giving her/him a rotation won't help her/him either... *shrug*

[Maero]

The best part of this all, hearing you will be returning to FFXIV Caimie
I have used most of your guides over at ffxivrealm for a while now

[matsjc]

It's good to know you are back in the game Caimie. Your crafting and gathering guides helped me a lot when I was still starting out.
I'll prolly need to review them again since I haven't touched crafting a few weeks after patch 3.4 was released.

[Caimie_Tsukino]

Caimie! You're back!
Just wanted to say thank you. Your guides were so helpful when I was levelling, especially when I felt I'd hit a wall.
I don't post often but I have found this community really helpful (so thanks to the rest of you guys, too).

The best part of this all, hearing you will be returning to FFXIV Caimie
I have used most of your guides over at ffxivrealm for a while now

It's good to know you are back in the game Caimie. Your crafting and gathering guides helped me a lot when I was still starting out.
I'll prolly need to review them again since I haven't touched crafting a few weeks after patch 3.4 was released.

Thank you very much for all your support. The goal of creating those guides was to help more people overcome their difficulties and able to enjoy the crafting game, which I've always loved. It pleases me much that my effort was not wasted as so many of you found them useful.

I always tell everyone: "Caimie is overrated." It's true. There are so many crafters better than me in this game. I am not sure if I can even rank at top 10%. However, I believe my passion for the crafting game is definitely ranking high, and I will never stop in spreading the joy which I find in the crafting game

In Dec 2015, I left the game to put more focus on my career, and I have achieved much in RL in the past year in 2016. But my life is changing again this summer. Since I won't be able to focus on career as much anyway, I might be able to play a bit more during my maternal leave this June. The timing is perfect as Stormblood will be released right around the same time. I think I'll be stuck in bed in pain for at least a week after the Caesarean Section. But I guess I can ask hubby to pass me the laptop to play in bed :P