FF14 Advanced Crafting Guide (Part 4 Stormblood) by Caimie Tsukino

[Caimie_Tsukino]

Faeon, Kalayel, you guys are right that there is likely no need to overmeld with Tier VI materia. It's a luxury. I did it because I happened to have them. When I ran out of VI's, I stopped using VI's for overmelding. You can see that on my pant and boots that I stopped overmelding VI's after running out of them.

However, for the earrings, necklace and bracelets, it's a tough decision. If I use a Tier V cunning on the overmeld, then I'll have 1 fewer CP on each of the accessories. How critical would it be if I were to have 3 fewer CP? No one would know until the future comes. With our current healthy CP pool, it's probably not critical. But I'm a CP-freak, so I'd go to that extreme.

For my hat and gloves, I used Cunning II for the last meld because they happened to be cheaper than Cunning I when I was doing the overmelds.

I probably have gone a bit more craftsmanship than most other people (Competence VI was pretty cheap when I was overmelding my gear, so I kinda went that way...). Some might disagree with my approach. But no one knows what's "right" until 4.4 comes. Anyhow, I still have plenty of room for adding more control. So I'm not worried. And I know as long as I have my max CP, I can make magic happen.

I am now very, very slowly gearing up my DoL classes now. I have all those HQ True Linen/ Nightsteel Ingots crafted already. So there is still plenty of time for me to craft my DoL gear before 4.4 arrives. Stormsap are pretty cheap now, so I can buy a bunch if I have to. I'm still so happy about myself selling all my Stormsap at the beginning of the patch 4.3. I can use that money to buy 3x as much Stormsap now.

Thank you so much! When it comes to melding I'm still quite a new person at it so I try to follow the melds of the gurus such as yourself closely as I can seems like I have my work cut out for me. Going to start melding it tonight

Take it easy! Don't break your bank with this! There is still time!

My room for melding is I haven't upgraded any of my armor but the head. Tools have CP only like Caimie's. Jewelry is almost all max melded (still have one 5% ... ), current emphasis CP > control > craftsmanship.

Five left side pieces, I will get around to making them but currently quite overpowered for my macros.

Since long ago, I have given up overmelding mainhand and offhand tools. It's just not worth the money and effort if you had to do it on all your classes. I don't mind doing it on 1 class if I had to use that class a lot on something though. For instance, I did that on my ALC when we had to make a lot of Snailfish Oil back then, and back the oil was over 6K difficulty before it was nerfed. So putting more emphasis on ALC was reasonable.

Ooh, thank you so much. I've been waiting to see what you meld. I always use your guides/melds as a reference for what I should do. I usually change them a little to meet my needs but it's super nice having a place to start. So far I've only overmleded my boots and belt I think since they were so easy to hit the cap. I need to throw in a lttle more gp and hit 800. I was a little bit slacking on that. Love your guides btw. I can't tell you how invaluable they were to a new player like me. I only started playing right after Stormblood came out and now I have all my crafting maxed out with the latest gear. Still working on getting materia though. Obviously I'm not super rich yet and can't afford materias at 300k a pop but I'm hoping after the next big expansion/patch that will change. TY for everything. Do you ever do a melding guide for gathering gear? If so I'd love to see it. If not then I'll probably wait for the next items to come out before trying to meld that stuff. Ty again. /bow

P.S. yours was the first guide I read on anything concerning FFXIV. I was so confused by crafting at the start but thanks to you and time it made the whole process much easier.

Thanks for your kind support! I have been slacking off with my DoL in Stormblood. I found that I have been able to get what I need even when I'm a bit undergeared. For instance, my current DoLs are still using i320 with NO overmelds (just in-slot melds). I have only around 700 GP, and I've been doing fine with obtaining everything. I even got lazy with crafting stuff for them, and went for the i330 yellow scrip offhands. Unlike DoH, which I highly value 5 CP from the offhand, have 5 fewer GP from the DoL offhand doens't seem to bother me. My current perception is at the minimum level of 1350, and gathering around 1330, I think. In case you haven't seen it, I've been using my own little table here for gathering. And the rotation I use is a relatively basic one listed on the pic, but it works fine.

[Shadygrove]

... I need to throw in a lttle more gp and hit 800. I was a little bit slacking on that....

Gameni, NQ GP +6% (Cap: 34), Gathering +2% (Cap: 18), Acquisition: Kurogai 2,180 gil. Kogane Dori.

WAY cheaper than blowing materia up.

[RayneLittlewinkle]

@ Caimie i'll try not to haha. I just want my gear to be decent for once at the start of a new patch. I hear people make millions of gil on the first 1-2 days. I've yet been able to accomplish that so I want to be prepared. The control 7's aren't so bad to get with turn ins but the 10's and 8's and 16's i'm having to buy from the MB love when they keep failing. though now ive already added them into the 100 percent slots just need to add the cp 8's a second time to the accessories

[Caimie_Tsukino]

@ Caimie i'll try not to haha. I just want my gear to be decent for once at the start of a new patch. I hear people make millions of gil on the first 1-2 days. I've yet been able to accomplish that so I want to be prepared. The control 7's aren't so bad to get with turn ins but the 10's and 8's and 16's i'm having to buy from the MB love when they keep failing. though now ive already added them into the 100 percent slots just need to add the cp 8's a second time to the accessories

Making millions on the first 2 days of a new patch is common, but not always. It really depends on what is released on that very patch. From my years of experience in the game, I can tell the best scenario... If SE releases new crafted BATTLE GEAR, and if their powers are good enough for raiders to be interested in, then there will be a crap load of purchases on the MB. This was the case for the crafted i350 when they were first released. People would buy a weapon for 4 to 5 million gil a piece, and I made about 20 million just on Day 1. In this case, RUSHING to get the items out for sale on Day 1 was a wise choice. However, if the mats required are way too difficult to acquire, or if the gear's power is way below tome-acquired or raid-acquired gear, then sales would be terrible. So you gotta log on early, and make the decision wisely. There were some patches before, which rushing for sales was a terrible idea. For example, back in HW, the release of i180 battle gear was a disaster. They required very rare mats, but they provide very minimal power to raiders. Anyone who rushed to sell those was doomed (lucky I didn't do that). Back in ARR, I once rushed to get some i90 accessories for sale when they were first released. But I skipped the gathering part, and bought some overpriced raw gems to craft them. The sales didn't go too well, and I think I actually lost money instead of gaining anything.

Furniture is also a variable thing. If the furniture is FUNCTIONAL, like the guest book lately, or the orchestrion, which was pretty much a "must", demand will be high. Otherwise, glamor furniture usually has a low demand, and it comes down to how many people are supplying. The only time when ALL furniture were at high demand was when Shirogane was first released. Oh boy, you had no idea how many large ponds I sold. I think I sold at least 15 of them... some for 1.2 mil each, others were 400K to 700K each.

My point is that, of course being prepared is good. But don't expect that there will always be money at the beginning of a patch. The best way is to read any pre-released patch note, and try to guess. Also, buy anything at low price that you foresee going to be needed in the next patch (this is actually the hard part - I have made mistakes of investing on useless items before). Also, try to log on as early as possible when a new patch is released, and then go through your crafting log to find out what's new, and what mats are needed for the new items, as well as to compare their stats with the tome-gear etc.... You just need to make some on-spot decisions very quickly.

[Straynge]

Definitely not leave it on retainer. I would start overmelding, but leave room for the future. Currently, we don't know what the craftsmanship "threshold" is. So I would max out CP, while leaving room so that we can either go more control or more craftsmanship later. Right now is also a good time to buy and stock up materia, as the price have gone down by almost half of the price that was at the beginning of this patch. You don't have to follow my melds, as I am unsure what is "the best". But here are my melds for your reference:

Is this what you're still using to craft new stuff with? If not, then if you ever get a chance would you mind showing me an updated screenshot of your melds? I'm just trying to figure out if I should add more to the Body/waist/weapon slots or not yet at this time. Also thanks again for everything. I don't always have the materia to copy you and sometimes I want other stats higher but it gives me a really great idea of what I should be aiming for.

[Thatusernameistaken]

Straynge, what are you trying to be able to do with your gear? Honestly my gear is pretty bad and I'm still able to 100% HQ pretty much everything with all NQ mats. YOu don't need anywhere near the max possible stats to be able to easily HQ stuff in this patch.

[Caimie_Tsukino]

Is this what you're still using to craft new stuff with? If not, then if you ever get a chance would you mind showing me an updated screenshot of your melds? I'm just trying to figure out if I should add more to the Body/waist/weapon slots or not yet at this time. Also thanks again for everything. I don't always have the materia to copy you and sometimes I want other stats higher but it gives me a really great idea of what I should be aiming for.

Thatusernameistaken is right that, even with the minimum stats of 1650 craft/1600 control, you can still effectively craft 4 star items if you use the ridiculously powerful Maker's Mark to manual craft it. The only reason to go after better stats, is just to more effectively macro your items... which means shorter macro (faster) and the use of fewer HQ mats in autocrafting mode.

I did those melds more than 3 months ago back in July, and now it's nearly November. Back in July, we did not know how hard 4 star would be, so naturally I tried to meld stronger materia, and leave space for future modifications.

Now, we know 4 star isn't hard at all. But I still increased my stats slightly, just so that I can macro with even more ease. I kept most of Mainhand and Offhand with just a single Cunning V. But I did modify my ALC tools, because I want to be able to macro those 4 star infusions using only 1 HQ mat. I also added a bit more craftsmanship on the chest, since I found that I needed it to effectively use my 3 star macros for 4 star items on non-specialists.

Below are the changes I made in October:




Below are my current stats for my ALC (specialist) and BSM (also specialist, but without extra control melds on tools)

[Straynge]

Thank you both, that's exactly what I was wanting to know. I've fallen a little behind in my melding but I easily have those minimum stats. I usually manually craft but I'm trying really hard to finally be able to use macros for a change. My stats are 1664 Crafting, 1612 Control and 470cp. I think I'll try to get my stats just a bit higher. I really need to learn how to craft better. I've been using the old specialty/delineation method so long (because my stats were so low) that I really don't know how to craft normally hehe. On the one hand it allows me to craft HQ ANYTHING from all NQ mats. On the other hand it requires so much more effort especially changing specialities and buying all the delineations. Time to upgrade and learn how to craft for real. Back to your guide and looking up other methods to craft. I'm still a total newbie on crafting 3/4 star stuff without using that method. Thank you'll, that really does help a lot. Once again I appreciate all the input. /bow to Camie /bow to Thatusername...uhm, that's a mouthful lol. Okay, /bow to Thatusernameistaken.

[Shadygrove]

Straynge, there are a fair number of macros posted in the 4.4 macros thread and the Stormblood 3* Crafting Macros for the Lazy Crafter (page 2 currently) threads.

Check them out.