Crafting and the gilsink of Leatherworker...

[Brahma]

I haven't leveled WVR yet and probably never will, but WVR seems harder to level than LTW to me, which I do have at 50. I don't know how much LTW cost me to level, but I don't think it could have been more than 200k. The only items that were hard for me to farm were boar hides, because I picked a time when 4-5 players were also trying to farm them. But, nothing else was really that difficult. I also had MNR at 50, so I never had to worry about alumen. GSM was way easier to level, but I'm glad I spent the time on LTW. Every crafting class I've leveled since then has needed leather, and I'm usually able to HQ some of my AF gear. Plus, Waste Knot II and the LTW AF gear are both awesome.

[FJerome]

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.

This.

People are discounting that time is a cost-sink all on its own.

Re: the OP, I think weaver's probably the most expensive craft and it's only partially to do with the diremite/fleece issue. It's also because most crafters have a three-step process, raw material > ingredient > finished product, so for example leather-workers have to go skin > leather > gloves or carpenters go log > lumber > fishing rod.



Weavers have to go fiber > thread > cloth > coat and that extra step really ends up costing you a lot in time and especially shards. Armorers have the same issue, ore > ingot > plate > helmet, but mined raw materials are a lot cheaper than hunted ones.

Cheapest craft is probably goldsmith, since it's a three-step crafting process, most of the raw materials can be bought pretty cheaply because the miners have to farm hundreds to level and there's a strong buyer's demand for accessories.

[Nihility]

I've found in general almost every craft needs mostly combination of 3 things to skill up solo

leatherworking needs hunting-tailoring-smithing
woodworking needs botany-smithing-leatherworking
armorer needs mining-leatherworking-weaving
alchemy needs botany-mining-hunting
goldsmithing needs mining-weaving-leatherworking
culinarian is hunting-fishing-botany

etc etc

[Raminax]

I found Leatherworking pretty cheap, actually. Though it might've been because I was lucky enough to be rewarded various hides and skins when doing my leves, so I always had some extras to spare. Well, everything except for Peiste and Raptor skins, but they were easily farmed... and then I got another million Peiste and Raptor skins when doing those leves. -_- The most expensive part of it was buying the Gatherer's Something III materia to finish the lvl50 quest.

Now, Weaver on the other hand... Ugh, just the silly amount of Flax and lightning shards used for that craft should be outright illegal.

[Ronyx]

Overall, I think LTW cost me about 400,000 gil (yes, 400,000!) To get from Level 23 - 50. Now, that may not be much to many of you, but I rarely keep that much gil on me or my retainers as I'm always helping friends and what not... (yes I know that's a measely 20 Philo Items... a whopping 25 runs of WP/AK...) and it would have been much more if friends hadn't chipped in with some supplies for materials for crafting class quests.

What are your favorite and least favorite things about your crafting classes?

Weave is worst. I was one of my highest craft and end up being the last to get to 50. Why because when you reach Wool and Felt thats when its gets REALLY expensive. So I stayed with Linen most of the time to level.

[Elkwood]

Took me 500K gil and about 100 Leves to get Weaver 50. Everything bought off AH.

And theres your problem, you bought everything off AH, I have spent maybe 1 million on crafting (This includes dropping 3-4 deep materia into my jewelry giving me 330/ skill/control on all crafts. Leveled Leather, Cooking, and Gold to 50 pretty much mined and farmed everything.

[Lstkaws]

It did not cost me much to bring up GSM, but I was leveling miner at the same time. It has been a money maker though out the whole process.

[Radacci]

The only cost of getting ltw to 45...was teleportation costs, of teleporting between leve NPCs...and by turning in HQ stuff, you still make more gil, than it costs to teleport...
So if you want to buy your levels, that's up to you ofc, but otherwise you could be making gil, instead of spending it.
But that's why stuff are overpriced; cause ppl are lazy, and rather spend all their gil, than do stuff, themselves.
Don't blame leatherworking, for your own laziness though; most crafts need mats from other crafts.

[AdvancedWind]

Even if you don't farm, if you just make 10 or so HQ gear or important materials after finishing each levequest tier (in other words, make a few HQ 25-29 itens once you hit 30), you can sell them on the AH and get enough money to cover most of your costs. If you just level CUL to 37 and everything else to 15, HQing anything below your current level with full NQ materials is trivial.

If you're just buying gear and doing levequests without completing the crafting log and making some HQ stuff to sell, you will spend a lot of money and not save that much time, no matter what class you're leveling.

[Grundy]

I'd say, if anything, Leatherworking makes you money - although admittedly mine is still pretty low. Weaver is definitely the killer if you buy your mats, luckily I had a good three hours uninterrupted Diremite farming and had Botany high enough to harvest flax so it's been easy on the gil, but more time consuming. The trick is to get enough Diremite webs for a Base, then focus on the Leves that reward Diremite webs to keep your stock up. I'm seriously considering spamming Flax through the wool levels as much as possible as it's 40k~ a stack of fleece and I've never managed to get any farming done as Karakul are permanently AOE farmed by BLMs on Excalibur (it seems).

In contrast, I can buy 20 Aldgoat skins, turn them into 20 leathers, use ten for Leves and make money back and more selling what is left over and it looks like that pattern will continue through Leatherworker. If you want an easy craft then take Alchemy to 50, it's crazy cheap.