Crafting and the gilsink of Leatherworker...

[Ksenia]

The only thing that makes Ltw a bit of a rigor is when you use the leather triple turn in group rather than the 80 dura. It's hard to keep the leve current when doing 40 dura synth and still turn in HQ. The 50 skill is the core skill to making 40 dura HQ. It's the ideal reward skill for that craft. It's also a great craft for people who would rather kill their mat's over gather. You need to know your mobs though.

In terms of cross classing the components, Blacksmith is far and away the most difficult as a launch craft.

[Boohiss]

If you can't be bothered to go out and actually gather and farm the materials to level up a craft, then you are simply paying for the convenience. I am almost done leveling my last craft (Leatherworker at 40 right now), and it hasn't taken much effort to farm materials needed to complete leve quests. I very, VERY highly suggest leveling Botany, Mining, and one DoW/DoM class to 50. After that you are golden. If not, I thank you for buying stuff from my retainer .

[Marael]

Honestly, I think the most time conuming / expensive / friend-required Craft is Leatherworker. Once you hit Aldgoat Leather (Level 20) you start needing Mining. You also need Weaving and either Armor or Blacksmith for ingots. And let's not forget the overall shards count...

Really? Because I lvled Leatherworker virtually free of charge. How? I made all of my own gear, I made all of my own materia to meld to it, I farmed all my skins by murdering masses of aldgoats, gigantoads, boars, and Peistes, and mined all my own alumin/black alumin. Then I did triple turn-in leves for aldgoat leather, then toad leather, then boar leather, then took Peiste leather to 50, and then I sold off any leftover leathers I had and actually made about 500k overall. I probably used about 25-ish leve allowances total going 20-50. Sure, it might have been a tad bit slower than just buying all the mats off the market, but I MADE money lvling it,and a pretty good chunk too. There's no reason you shouldn't either other than your own laziness. Just sayin. No one forced you to pay boatloads of cash. You could have easily done it absolutely for free too. You just have to be a little smart, and put a little more effort into getting your own materials. There isn't a craft in the game that can't be leveled for free if you put in the effort to gather your own materials. 1-50 took about a week total.

[juniglee]

There is no laziness, there is only opportunity cost. Time = money.

The time you spent farming for your own mats pay for their cost. The only thing that's left is to determine whether the amount of time spent was worth the price you would have paid for those materials on the marketboard.

So it's not technically free, you are paying for them in time spent.

I am personally on the side of farming my own mats, but in the time it took me to get to BSM 50, the price of Aeolian Scimitars melded with 2x Battledance III materias have dropped from 55k to 25k on my server. Battledance Materia III prices themselves have also dropped from 7k a piece to 3.3k. If I was 50 much earlier, I could have made more from selling such items too. I guess it offsets that the time you spend saving money, ends up being money you lose as the price of the items drop over time.

It will cost you some to level the class to 50 itself, but once you can HQ some necessities (ie. ilv49 rings for GSM, HQ gathering gear for LTW, HQ crafting gear for WVR), that's where you'll start to cover back the costs.

[unami1]

Tonight was the first time I ever spent coin on my crafting and the only reason I did was because I could make more coin by not gathering the mats myself for a triple leve. I spent 4600 gil and made 11k and 2 levels on my leather working. I do not have a 50 dom/dow character. I have all but cooking and fishing to 30+ and every dom/dow to 15+ with 3 of them to 30+. I make all my own HQ gear and have tons of coin. Its only a gil sink if you make it one.

[Arale]

WVR price depends on how much fleece is on your server, and/or how heavily it's farmed. On my server, I can easily farm all the materials to level leatherworker for dirt cheap, however WVR mobs are much more susceptible to farming/competition then boars/peistes/raptors are. Also, sincxe skins are a 1:1 rate, you get much more out of a 3x boar leather drop or raptor leather drop then a 3xfleece drop.

[Boohiss]

For Weaver, I skipped fleece entirely and leveled on flax based leves to 50. Just depends on if you want to use more leve allowances up is all. I thought it was worth the trade off personally.

[Akuha]

This is why a FC needs to pool their resources together so nobody has to do it all by themselves.

I do it all by myself anyway, because I don't feel like I'm learning anything if I don't.

[Kewitt]

All MMO's I've ever played unless you farm items yourself the only way to make gil is with HQ.
With FFXIV the only way to make gil is with items that give CP GP craft or gathering skill everything else is par unless you HQ.


If you make a few CP GP crafting gathering items they sell for 2-5 items the cost of items. So 5-10k profit and that adds up quickly. without using any special items.

[GilbertLapine]

I wonder how you guys make so much gil to level your crafting classes.

Peacock ore, craftsman materias, and natron. 'Nuff said.

That and gathering class leveling sales. Only farm the most valuable item per level bracket, use survival guides to offset any potential expo losses.