Level 50 skills advice

[Caimie_Tsukino]

Ehh, but I'm playing a bit differently than most would. I haven't even bought HW yet, so I'm having a bit of a pause at 50 to appreciate all this content I have available. Sure, I could've bought to keep leveling and make life easier probably. But I think it's kinda nice not skipping through so much so quickly.

Definitely didn't plan to go too overboard with melding, though. But, with what the Ixali can sell me, it sounded like a simple enough proposition to get a few nice stat boosts if I need.

If you wanna slowly chew on the old ARR content and experience the challenge that veteran crafters once had... sure! Why not? I have to admit I had such great fun with them back then! You can even check my outdated crafting guide part 2, which was written for ARR endgame. I remember I tried very hard not to simply lay out rotations there in the guide, but to just lead people to form their own rotations, so it feels more like a puzzle-solving game. You will also learn a great deal about crafting difficult items too by going through this process. It will, however, slow you down a lot from entering HW content. But if you're not in a rush for it, then why not? After all, we craft because we like it, right?

P.S. I will, however, recommend using Heavensward item "Baked Onion Soup HQ" as the food of choice when you try to acquire the old ARR master books.

[Driavna]

ARR was nerfed so It won't be that much of a challenge anymore, compared to the jump to HW, but unlocking all master recipes is a good idea and you can make tons of gil with Z weapons items related, augmentations for ARR relics, certain furniture and Orchestrion's Rolls.

Also the better your gear, in general, the fewer indignities you will suffer while arriving at HW.

[MN_14]

The turn in requirements have been majorly nerfed but the crafts themselves should still be harder than anything released in HW. AFAIK, the only major change has been the ability to use tricks of the trade on excellent procs. I've played around with an old level 50 alt recently and crafting level 50 2* artisan's tokens reliably from all NQ while overgeared with level 50 4* stats and max cp is still harder than current level 60 4* crafts, nevermind the ARR 3* and 4* crafts/tokens. All HW recipes have been like lite versions of ARR master crafts including the latest ones.

I've never really understood feedback on the difficulty of the 51-50 leveling crafts. They're harder than ARR 1-50 non-star recipes for sure, but they aren't much different from crafting the lower tier ARR master crafts, especially if you have multiple level 50 abilities. Even without them, the process of crafting a level 51 or 52 craft using AF gear at level 50 isn't much different from crafting ARR 1* and 2* using a single class at 50 (at min requirements without byregots). These are things that we all had to go through even in ARR (unless a crafter went through the 1* and 2* rng free route, skipping the learning process).

[Driavna]

...

Dunno, I did craft myself all Z weapons recipes at 50 with the minimum stats required and was extremely easy compared to the jump to HW so I always assumed was nerfed to the ground and beyond. Was the same with DoL, can't even gather HQ materials for the first quest.

[MN_14]

Well, most of the ARR crafts weren’t particularly hard either. It’s just that HW crafts are that much easier.

3* in ARR is similar to the more difficult level 51 recipes (I can’t really recall but the lodestone seems to show recipes with different progress/quality requirements even at 80 DUR), and 4* is similar to level 53. If you were geared with 4* stats, you could already breeze through level 51-53 crafts right from the start at 50. Once you hit level 51, however, the major level penalty is gone so everything becomes a cakewalk.

If your stats weren’t as good, level 51 crafts at 50 would be a bit harder and could require some HQ materials, but once you hit level 51, you were fine. Skills like RS cleave through progress when the penalty is gone. This is a key point because a common error is that most crafters would prefer to use cs2 even if it meant using it 4-5 times.

The hardest crafts in ARR were the master 2 tokens but even they weren't actually that bad. Once you figured out a reliable strategy, you could build 10-11 stacks of IQ almost every other synth. If you used what you learned from ARR on HW crafts, you’d steam roll through every last craft.

[Hasrat]

Big bump, bit of a continuation of that topic actually, as I've made a bit of progress and am now staring at a bit of a wall. I crafted up to the first Master books (and blew some money on demimaterias for the demi books). Short of melding loads of materia (still in that class gear set, nothing shared =/ ), I'm not entirely sure how I'm meant to hit the stat requirements for anything now. Short on both Craftsmanship and Control, and I don't think there's any food to boost both. Am I stuck with melding (until/unless I decide to jump to HW)? If so, am I probably best served just doing one class, and working on that for the Artisan gear to bring everyone back on balance?

[Caimie_Tsukino]

Big bump, bit of a continuation of that topic actually, as I've made a bit of progress and am now staring at a bit of a wall. I crafted up to the first Master books (and blew some money on demimaterias for the demi books). Short of melding loads of materia (still in that class gear set, nothing shared =/ ), I'm not entirely sure how I'm meant to hit the stat requirements for anything now. Short on both Craftsmanship and Control, and I don't think there's any food to boost both. Am I stuck with melding (until/unless I decide to jump to HW)? If so, am I probably best served just doing one class, and working on that for the Artisan gear to bring everyone back on balance?

Congrats on All-50 and Builder of the Realm title!
And trust me, you won't regret about all those level 50 cross class skills. They're extremely fun and powerful to play with.

Personally, I do not recommend getting spending too much money and effort on Artisan stuff anymore. I do not recommend melding anything either (except some cheap CP materia). What you need now, is to somehow push all your classes to level 51. Because once you reach 51, all your classes can share the Archeoskin crafting set. Yes, this is post-50, and it's HW stuff. But you don't need to buy HW to access them. I am not sure if you have level 51 to level 60 recipes without buying HW though. It would be nice if you can tell me about that. If you have the class gear set, you should have enough powers to do quite a lot of things. Please visit my Heavensward crafting guide Ch 32E and Ch33. Ch 32E has some info about rotations. Please compare your rotations with them to see if you can further strengthen your rotations. Ch 33 has info about the Archeoskin gear set.

If you intend to finish up the ARR end-game stuff, like Master Book II, Supra Tools, Lucis Tools etc., you may. But it's better to acquire stronger shared gear first at level 51 (and accessories too, if you would like to use the Heavensward accessories, then go up to level 53/54. But at that point, you probably should just buy HW).

[Hasrat]

But, to use the Archaeoskin stuff, I do have to buy HW and level to use them, and if I'm buying/starting up HW stuff, progression is pretty natural at that point, anyway. Level cap without expansions is still 50. I mean, I had intended to at least try for the Artisan's set, possibly Master Book II, etc, before grabbing HW and starting on that whole process. But, if it's all a bit too excessive to try at 50 anymore, might just skip all that after all. Looking at the first chart in your guide, seems it's about as I thought. Overmeld one class to get over that hump. Although it did remind me about those Ixali gloves I haven't gotten yet. So I've still got that to work towards at least. And I can feel a little accomplished for getting the first Master Books without overleveling/gearing.

As for your curiosity, yes, at 50 without HW, I do have access to the 51-55 recipes, although obviously I have no way to collect the mats myself (and can't actually wear any of it anyway).

[Elamys]

If you don't plan on getting Heavensward soon, then by all means, work on getting your Artisan's set, if you still want to progress. If you want to spend less gil, but you do have Ixal up to get Oaknots, you can try making it yourself.

[Hasrat]

Had completely forgotten, until the guide also pointed out, that I do have FC actions available. If I boost Control by 10, and eat my HQ Cheesecake, I should have just enough stats to meet the requirements to get the Artisan's gear items. Remains to be seen if I have the skills, might still be difficult, but maybe I'm not quite as stalled out as I thought.