FF14 Advanced Crafting Guide by Caimie Tsukino - Being Re-vamped in 2021

[Caimie_Tsukino]

Chapter 21G … you say that HQ and NQ have the same spiritbond rate.

When did that change? IIRC each Materia adds 20%(?) to the points gained towards Spiritbinding, and HQ adds another 20%(?). I am not positive about the 20% number but I do remember that HQ bonded faster than NQ, as though HQ status was another Materia melded to the item.

I set up an experiment today. First, I crafted an Initiate's Gown HQ and a pair of Velveteen Chausses NQ. Both items are i24, and I melded 2 Cunning I materia on each of the items.
I then Quicksyn 5 syntheses of Dew Thread, and then did 5 manual syntheses of HQ Dew Thread.
My results showed that:
- HQ gear spiritbond FASTER than NQ gear.
- Crafting an HQ item by manually pushing quality will earn more spiritbonding than Quicksyn of the same item.

The interesting thing is, HQ gear does NOT spiritbond 20% faster. But the NQ gear spiritbonds 20% slower!
At low % spiritbond, it is not that obvious, but the effect can be seen more clearly at higher % of spiritbond:
When HQ was at 5%, NQ was at 4%.
When HQ was at 11%, NQ was at 9%.
When HQ was at 12%, NQ was at 10%.
When HQ was at 14%, NQ was at 11%. 14% * 80/100 = 11.2. But 11% * 120/100 = 13.2, which is not 14.
When HQ was at 25%, NQ was at 20%. Once again, 25% * 80/100 = 20. But 20% * 120/100 = 24, which is not 25.

So I was definitely wrong! I was probably thinking about how HQ and NQ gear having the same desyn rate, but somehow mixed my thoughts with spiritbond.
I have amended this part of the guide now. Thanks very much for correcting me on this!

[Roth_Trailfinder]

You might try repeating that test, using fresh new gear as you had, with the HQ piece only having one materia.

Still, glad I could help improve your guide by pointing something like that out. As for the difference between quick synth and manually synthing … I wonder if it has to do with the Quality gain? Or, more accurately, the experience points that the craft is worth? Going from 0 Quality to max gives a 300% experience bonus (for 4 times the experience gain compared to not adding any Quality) I wonder how the difference compares with Spiritbonding. I’ve never tested that.

[ICountFrom0]

I suspect exp has links with spiritbond. Combat jobs near 80 doing praetorium get a level of exp from the bonus, but get so little exp in the dungeon that spiritbond dosen't seem to move at all. (soruce, doing 30 levels on WHM, SCH and AST with only pratorium runs, once per day, while wearing the same set of equipment on all three of them, without reaching 100% spiritbond).

[Caimie_Tsukino]

wasn't it the pink items that had a boost to spiritbond rate, the ones that are being phazed out?

Not sure about that. But since they're phazed out, it's kinda outside our interest anyway.

I suspect exp has links with spiritbond. Combat jobs near 80 doing praetorium get a level of exp from the bonus, but get so little exp in the dungeon that spiritbond dosen't seem to move at all. (soruce, doing 30 levels on WHM, SCH and AST with only pratorium runs, once per day, while wearing the same set of equipment on all three of them, without reaching 100% spiritbond).

That's certainly possible. But I won't be looking too deeply into this at the moment. Got other priorities

[Caimie_Tsukino]

Two new chapters have been added to the guide today:
Ch16: Leveling Gear Sets to Bridge Over Expansions
Ch20: Rowena's Representative (Sundry Splendors)

[Shadygrove]

wasn't it the pink items that had a boost to spiritbond rate, the ones that are being phazed out?

Actually you van still find one pink accessory in every run of Aurum Vale. So not phased out but way reduced in possible items.

As for the difference between quick synth and manually synthing … I wonder if it has to do with the Quality gain? Or, more accurately, the experience points that the craft is worth?

Seeing as you can HQ items rapid synthing, but you get no extra EXPs for it your "Or, more accurately, the experience points that the craft is worth" is indeed more accurate.

[numbermania]

I made an account to comment on the forum just to let you know I had just read your entire revamped guide and I love it so much that I honestly don't know how to thank you.

I'm very new to the game and I got into gathering and crafting after I finished Shadowbringers because they honestly seemed really fun to me and I like these "number puzzles" type games. The crafting system was a a little intimidating to get into because everyone was saying how hard and "arcane" things were at the higher levels. I also have sort of a perfectionist mentality when doing stuff like this, so I tried to look up a lot of guides before I dove head in. Most of them were very frustrating to the extreme because it was all just giant macro lists of things to copy/paste given the durability of the craft and your stat breakpoints. I felt like I couldn't learn anything about the "why" or develop my own rotations so I just gave up on guides and started on my own (I figured that I couldn't really make THAT many mistakes at level 1 lol). I had a blast and it was super fun figuring out new rotations very time I got a new skill, sort of like a combat class developing its rotation as it levels up. I was able to craft most everything to HQ and crafted all of my own gear as I leveled through ARR.

However, I did have some problems. When I tried to craft mats that were over my level, I couldn't get HQ consistently and tried to use the online crafting optimizer to find problems. It didn't really help in a lot of cases, and sometimes it spit out some rotations that were honestly puzzling to me. As I got more skills, even though I got a good outcome, I was worried a lot of the time that I wasn't doing things correctly or "how they should be done." I made a lot of newbie mistakes too, the most egregious being spending all good/excellent conditions on Tricks of the Trade until about level 35. I had no idea that it gave extra efficiency to quality, so I was just running it all for CP. I didn't realize my mistake until I opened the calculations tab during one craft randomly and happened to see a projected quality increase during an excellent condition. Talk about shock and dismay lol. (Now I love that tab, makes me feel like a war strategist each time I craft).

[numbermania]

I hit HW crafting recently and took a break to level my gathering jobs ahead (just to prepare myself to get mats for crafting in the new zone). And in my downtime, I was looking for more guidance and happened on your completely wonderful/brilliant guide. I swear to GOD this is exactly the thing I've been looking for!!! A simple yet detailed breakdown of all the skills we have, and some good/bad cases for using each. I loved the section you added on how to build rotations, because it's the exact sort of logic that I love follow. Some SAMPLE rotations, and then... the pièce de résistance: The best rotation is no rotation. YOU REFERENCED 令狐沖!!!! MY CHILDHOOD AND FAVORITE STORY HERO!!! I'M NOT KIDDING WHEN I SAY THAT I TEARED UP A LITTLE! And you are ab-so-fking-lutely right! I love that your guide provides the foundational pieces and some general structural guidance, that allows the user to free form as needed during manual crafting. I have done about 99% of my crafting so far through manual crafting (I have not really found a need for macros so far and I hate that they can't react to procs) and this is totally essential. Reading your guide made me feel free to experiment and I'm very eager to put what I learned from you to use soon!

Sorry for the humongous wall of text (2 posts lmao), but I really wanted to let you know how much I appreciated this. I have looked around A LOT, and truly the guide is one of a kind. I may not know a lot about the systems, but I feel that I agree with almost everything that you wrote down (some of the concepts I'm not sure I follow, such as WN vs WN2 but I will do more reading about it). The guide is structured well, written well, and honestly I wish this was the first thing I read when I started crafting. I tried to find out if I could send you an in game mail to thank you, but I was told that isn't possible since we aren't on the same data center. This seemed like the next best thing, so THANK YOU VERY MUCH AGAIN! I hope every starting crafter is able to find your guide and benefit from it like I did. I know it probably sounds presumptuous and ridiculous coming from a noob, but if I can help you with anything I would be honored to!

[Caimie_Tsukino]

I made an account to comment on the forum just to let you know I had just read your entire revamped guide and I love it so much that I honestly don't know how to thank you.

Thank you for taking the effort to create an account just to comment about my guide!

I'm very new to the game and I got into gathering and crafting after I finished Shadowbringers because they honestly seemed really fun to me and I like these "number puzzles" type games. The crafting system was a a little intimidating to get into because everyone was saying how hard and "arcane" things were at the higher levels. I also have sort of a perfectionist mentality when doing stuff like this, so I tried to look up a lot of guides before I dove head in. Most of them were very frustrating to the extreme because it was all just giant macro lists of things to copy/paste given the durability of the craft and your stat breakpoints.

Thank Goodness! Someone actually appreciates my teaching approach! \o/
Yes, I agree! I have searched "FFXIV crafting guide" on google in the past few months before, and all I got are macro collections to help ppl level from 1 to 80... always macros, always leveling from 1 to 80. I find it rather silly, because leveling has been made soooooo easy already with the Firmament. Do ppl still need help with leveling with macros? Might as well just design your own rotations and write your own macros that fit your own stats, rather than forcing yourself to acquire stats just so that you can use those macros in a guide, right? Seems to have reversed the order of things! LOL

I felt like I couldn't learn anything about the "why" or develop my own rotations so I just gave up on guides and started on my own (I figured that I couldn't really make THAT many mistakes at level 1 lol). I had a blast and it was super fun figuring out new rotations very time I got a new skill, sort of like a combat class developing its rotation as it levels up. I was able to craft most everything to HQ and crafted all of my own gear as I leveled through ARR.

See, that's what crafting is about! That's the kind of fun I had 6 years ago when I started crafting in ARR!!! I didn't use any guide! I just explored on my own!

I hit HW crafting recently and took a break to level my gathering jobs ahead (just to prepare myself to get mats for crafting in the new zone). And in my downtime, I was looking for more guidance and happened on your completely wonderful/brilliant guide. I swear to GOD this is exactly the thing I've been looking for!!! A simple yet detailed breakdown of all the skills we have, and some good/bad cases for using each.

I doubt I'll find another person who would use the word "simple" to describe my guide! LOL! I think many people tend to think I wrote too much... But yes, I do my best to explain things clearly with some occasional examples.

I loved the section you added on how to build rotations, because it's the exact sort of logic that I love follow. Some SAMPLE rotations, and then... the pièce de résistance: The best rotation is no rotation. YOU REFERENCED 令狐沖!!!! MY CHILDHOOD AND FAVORITE STORY HERO!!! I'M NOT KIDDING WHEN I SAY THAT I TEARED UP A LITTLE! And you are ab-so-fking-lutely right! I love that your guide provides the foundational pieces and some general structural guidance, that allows the user to free form as needed during manual crafting. I have done about 99% of my crafting so far through manual crafting (I have not really found a need for macros so far and I hate that they can't react to procs) and this is totally essential. Reading your guide made me feel free to experiment and I'm very eager to put what I learned from you to use soon!

Thank you! I'm so glad someone appreciates those sections with heart! I also think those sections are the BEST parts of the whole guide, as they bring out the ESSENCE of the crafting game and elevate it to another level.

I had to write that section about fantasy martial arts carefully though, and build up to that point of "no rotation". I don't want people to think rotations are useless, and immediate jump to randomly mashing buttons. Things need to be done step by step. Crafters gotta read tool tips, and then develop a further understanding of how to fully utilize actions via combos, and then develop ability to formulate own rotations, before finally able to craft without a fixed rotation. I still strongly advice people to draft a rotation before crafting anything. Being adaptive does not mean walking into battle without a plan, right?

Keep in mind that macros is still a very important part of the crafting game too though. Able to come up with the best macros can be very satisfying too! We gotta appreciate how beautiful those macro designs are from some of the best crafters in the game!

Sorry for the humongous wall of text (2 posts lmao), but I really wanted to let you know how much I appreciated this. I have looked around A LOT, and truly the guide is one of a kind. I may not know a lot about the systems, but I feel that I agree with almost everything that you wrote down (some of the concepts I'm not sure I follow, such as WN vs WN2 but I will do more reading about it).

Hmm, perhaps I need to revisit the parts about WN and WN2, and try to illustrate them in ways that are easier for readers to understand. Thanks for letting me know!

The guide is structured well, written well, and honestly I wish this was the first thing I read when I started crafting. I tried to find out if I could send you an in game mail to thank you, but I was told that isn't possible since we aren't on the same data center. This seemed like the next best thing, so THANK YOU VERY MUCH AGAIN! I hope every starting crafter is able to find your guide and benefit from it like I did. I know it probably sounds presumptuous and ridiculous coming from a noob, but if I can help you with anything I would be honored to!

No, thank YOU for your kind words! I was a noob myself too! Remember what I mentioned in the guide about me leveling 4 classes without even knowing leves existed? I felt so stupid! XD

[Roth_Trailfinder]

Actually you van still find one pink accessory in every run of Aurum Vale. So not phased out but way reduced in possible items.


Seeing as you can HQ items rapid synthing, but you get no extra EXPs for it your "Or, more accurately, the experience points that the craft is worth" is indeed more accurate.

That was not me who mentioned pink items …