Ok. I am GSM lvl 50!! Now what?

[Michelasso]

And that costed me a ton of money for the levequests. I also bought the lvl 50 HQ tools. What do I need it for? I mean, what's the most efficient way to use it.

First of all I would love to get some money back from it. How much can I charge to meld materia? How shoudl I make myself available? Also I'd like to know how to make/get lvl III and IV materia. Any suggestion?

[Shirai]

Reasonable prices for melding? I have no idea to be fair.
Shout around and see what people offer I guess, or ask other what crafters around you charge.
Prices can differ drastically per server.

As for other ways, after looking you up on the loadstone I see you haven't leveled any of the gathering jobs higher than 20 which means you would have to buy all your ingredients, crystals and clusters.
Which means your best chance for any kind of profit is making HQ items that sell on a regular basis.

My advise for making profit?
Level your gathering classes so that you can farm your own materials, aside from that it'll also help to level the other crafting classes as some of those cross-class skills will make HQing easier as well.
Sticking to a single class won't do you any good.

As for making/obtaining Materias:
http://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Spiritbond

[Reiterpallasch]

Make stuff! Tons of what GSM can make is popular for spiritbonding, and as such will sell very fast and have a bit of profit to it as well.

[Michelasso]

Ok, thanks both for the answer. Obviously I thought about going on with the miner. Those crystals to buy are a PITA at 1-2000 pieces per stock. As well as I want to get steady hands II. But to level up more than 4 DoH (plus a Dol) becomes a terrible pain with the inventory. I waste most of the time with it, I simply cant stand it.

Regarding selling stuff… a lvl 50 GSM is useless compared to others. A culinarian lvl 20 gets rich much sooner and with little efforts/costs just selling HQ food.

I mean, where the heck do people find the 150K and more gils for 1 lvl IV materia??? Where do the Gil spammers get the millions of Gils to sell, actually. Should I grind Fleece or Diremite webs for hours and sell it?

[OrganizationXIll]

I typically let people "Tip" me for melds. I generally get around 5K for level 50 melds as a tip. Some one did like 20 some forbidden melds and tipped me 20K after when 5 of them succeeded. Its pretty decent money. Also, your next step is to gear yourself so you can make 1 and 2 star items. Those (HQ) typically sell for 500K to 1M.

[HaplessHermit]

3k is considered a minimum tip, usually. Also, GSM is a unique craft because most of the mats are self-contained, and you don't need a ton of cross-class mats from other crafts; mining is another story, but I'm sure you know that. This makes keeping stuff on-hand for GSM pretty easy.

You said you bought the HQ 50 tools, I'd advise you to do the GSM guild questline in Ul'dah. The final quest for each crafting questline gives your 'special' mainhand tool, which is the best tool in the game aside from luminaries. Anyway, I would try and craft a variety of items (accessories), and not put all your eggs in one basket. If you overstock the market with something, you'll be undercut to hell and back.

I'd also recommend leveling other crafts right away for their cross-class abilities, especially Culinarian. I hated getting Culinarian to 37, but the two abilities you get from doing so are just way too good not to get. You *need* them to do the real crafting!

[Michelasso]

Yeah, I obviously did already the lvl 50 quest. But thanks. That hammer raises the stats quite a lot. Also thank you for the chart! Although I am not sure I really understood it.

Oh, regarding crystals I buy 1000 and sell them in little stocks at higher prices. It seems to work. I want to finish first the main quest (I wanted at least to be able to make my own HQ clothes and "jewels" for the mages, so I finished them first. Well, WVR is close to. lvl 47 or so) and then I'll do some mining. WHich I find uttelry boring, though!! Crafting is another thing, it involves the brain.