SE, We need to talk about Leatherworker ...

[Nixxe]

On the subject of "just buy the mats and flip it!" - yeah, that doesn't work on Balmung like 80% of the time,

< is from Balmung
< knows you're wrong

[Elamys]

< is from Balmung
< knows you're wrong

Finished products sell for less than their material cost on this server all the time. I'm not just talking about normal items. Look up the cost of primal weapons right now versus their materials, it's a little depressing actually.

As for this particular item, dawn serge, right now, the cost of making a single piece comes out to 22,800 gil. The cloth itself sells for 38,000. The yarn sells 44,700. If you were to just buy the yarn and make the cloth, you'd be spending 134,100. So for this particular item, you can take the mob drops to sell for yarn and make a decent profit. But if you start with the yarn to make cloth you're really far in the hole.

So you have to start with farming/buying mob drops, which puts us right back where it started, where it takes a very, very long time to get those items. Is a profit of 15k worth the amount of time I'd spend with my retainers tied up getting those materials or fighting the mobs out in the world, competing against others for them? For me it's not, maybe for others it is. Again, all we're asking for is a small buff. Is this such a terrible thing?

On a side note, Serge battle gear is worth almost nothing versus the cost of its materials right now. A lot of that probably has to do with MSQ rewards, but it's a pattern I've noticed where intermediary materials tend to sell for more than finished products.

[Nixxe]

Finished products sell for less than their material cost on this server all the time. I'm not just talking about normal items. Look up the cost of primal weapons right now versus their materials, it's a little depressing actually.

As for this particular item, dawn serge, right now, the cost of making a single piece comes out to 22,800 gil. The cloth itself sells for 38,000. The yarn sells 44,700. If you were to just buy the yarn and make the cloth, you'd be spending 134,100. So for this particular item, you can take the mob drops to sell for yarn and make a decent profit. But if you start with the yarn to make cloth you're really far in the hole.

So you have to start with farming/buying mob drops, which puts us right back where it started, where it takes a very, very long time to get those items. Is a profit of 15k worth the amount of time I'd spend with my retainers tied up getting those materials or fighting the mobs out in the world, competing against others for them? For me it's not, maybe for others it is. Again, all we're asking for is a small buff. Is this such a terrible thing?

On a side note, Serge battle gear is worth almost nothing versus the cost of its materials right now. A lot of that probably has to do with MSQ rewards, but it's a pattern I've noticed where intermediary materials tend to sell for more than finished products.

And this is information you can find out from doing about 30 seconds of research, so if you don't do the research and end up starting at the yarn and making the cloth, then you quite honestly deserve to lose that money. My post was not meant to indicate an entirely witless buffoon was going to safely make a profit, only that it's easy and reliable with even minimal effort.

Buy the mob drops off the MB and make extra yarn to sell to recoup the losses. In addition to the cloth, the yarn is used itself for many in demand crafts, in particular gathering gear. What are you doing with your life? Farming mobs for drops is for poor people with no crafting jobs leveled who for whatever reason really hate making money.