I'm r44 Alchemy at the moment and I'm stuck in a rut. There are only a handful of r45+ Alchemy recipes and they're all either too expensive to grind on, impossible to find mats for, or they just give poor SP.

I've been mainly breaking clusters and doing the two local leves in Ul'dah. Besides how uncommon it is to find clusters in abundance, they're giving medicore SP at r44. The recipes for Gold Enamel, Or and Argent Lacquers, and Smothering/Disabling Baghnakhs all give the same sort of mediocre SP, sharing the fact that the mats are few and far between. I'd turn to making boar leather dye, but I never see the scale bugs for boar leather dye on the markets.

So I turn to you, wise denizens of the official forums. To those of you who are r50 Alchemist, know an r50 Alchemist or just like pretending to be an r50 Alchemist -- nevermind, scratch that --, how did you manage to get to r50? Did you just do the same synths, slowing gaining of off the ever-lessening SP or what?