I need some help picking my craft

[Apaulcalypse]

I currently have a lvl 50 dragoon and bard so naturally I went with botany/carpenter. However I feel as if it's somewhat useless because of relic/ relic +1 weapons why would I ever have the need to create my own weapons. Lately though I been looking at goldsmith/mining I feel like it would be more beneficial because I heard that crafted accessories can be as good as coil drops with the amount of materia you can squeeze in. Not only that but I will be able to outfit myself with a full row of items that can be as good as endgame gear. Maybe my information is lacking can anyone give me a suggestion with what I should go with?

Also what is this whole thing with pvp and crafting being tied together? I keep hearing about it but only very vague sentences. Like is it gonna be necessary or ...what lol?

[Roth_Trailfinder]

If you intend to delve into crafting with anything remotely resembling some kind of seriousness, I'd have to say, work on all of the crafting, and both Mining and Botany.

Mining and Botany (and, to a lesser extent, Fishing, but if any can be skipped, Fishing can be skipped - its valuable, but not quite to the same degree as Mining and Botany) supply an awful lot of materials to all of the crafting classes.

Weaving, Leatherworking, and to a lesser extent, Carpenter make crafting and gathering gear for you to wear. Blacksmith makes most of the crafting tools, though Goldsmithing makes Weaver's needles. In addition to those needles, Goldsmith also makes the CP gear necessary for crafting.

Each crafting class (except Culinary) makes materials useful to one degree or another by other crafting classes. Culinary, rather than making raw materials, makes the food that you eat to help your Control, Craftsmanship, or CP.

Each crafting class has three Cross-Class Skills, available at 15, 37, and 50. Although most of the 37 Cross-Class Skills are garbage (the lone exception is the extremely useful Steady Hand 2 from Culinary) the majority of the 15 and 50 Cross Class Skills are quite valuable, either on their own or in conjunction with other skills. You will want those Cross Class Skills when it comes time to make anything for the Triple Leves for skilling up from 20 onward, or any time you desire to make HQ rather than just NQ stuff.

No one (except for SE) can speak towards PVP. They've hinted that some gear that won't make much sense to use in PVE is going to be rather powerful in PVP, and that such gear is going to be crafted. We will have to see ... but ... the most effective crafters are the ones who have the skills and the stats to make whatever they care to make, and you don't get that without going both wide and deep into your crafting classes.

[TwoEggs]

u can get a craft to 50 pretty quick with repetable leves.. I would say burn 100 leves on 1 craft doing repetables. then while u recharge your leves work on mining\botany. I woild say work them all in that fashion .. mainly because crafted items are nothing until u hit 50.. fate grinding ruined low level crafting its pretty pointless

[Ksenia]

If you have no real desire to craft and just want gear, hit battle craft Leve's. Always look for treasure chests and if you plow through 20 or so, you will get an Aetherial weapon and often a bunch more Aetherial stuff. For some reason I don't get them at 45, they stopped at 40 but you can fit multiple classes in Aetherial using this method. I find the weapons drops tie to the origin place of the class. So do level 30 in Gridania for bows.

Your Grand Company will also have good gear.

If you enjoy crafting for sure, level some up. Woodworker is a good choice for first craft but get others to 15. Unlock them all, do the 1, 5 and 10 quests in each one. That will get you set up with some shards that should tie you over up to around 25. If you enjoy it you will see levels melt and you won't really seem like you worked that hard at it.

[ruinedmirage]

It's true, if you want to have accessories as good as endgame items, you'll need to level all the crafts, because without the cross class skills, the quality won't even come close. If you DON'T want to level all the crafts, be ready to spend a fortune on HQ mats. If you don't want to spend a fortune, be ready to level up the gathering classes as well.

I actually really enjoy the crafting system. Just try not to be to judgemental about the % vs. rate of success.

[Apaulcalypse]

Thanks for the comments everyone. So if I level goldsmith and not other classes then it will take me longer to get HQ items because of the lack of cross class skills requiring me to spend more money on material. If I level mining along side it then it will save me the money correct?

[juniglee]

Thanks for the comments everyone. So if I level goldsmith and not other classes then it will take me longer to get HQ items because of the lack of cross class skills requiring me to spend more money on material. If I level mining along side it then it will save me the money correct?

I speak from experience here as someone who has no other lv15 cross class skills (I am working on getting them now however), and already have a lv50 GSM.

You won't be able to craft the 1-star or 2-star items (or at least HQ them with NQ materials), but you should be able to craft all other things. The class itself is fairly self-contained - most of the stuff you need for GSM can be gotten simply via mining, or crafted materials from the GSM class itself - you hardly need crafted materials from other classes (ie. yarns, cloth, lumber, plates, rivets, oil, glue, etc). Mining gives you all the ore you need for GSM.

Once you hit 50, you can even craft your own HQ ilv49 accessories or crafting accessories to spiritbond with. And they are fairly easy to craft without many of the Lv15 cross class skills.

The only caveat I can think of is that you can't get HQ miner accessories from GSM, with the exception of earrings - they're all made from LTW. However, it's perfectly easy to level up Miner without any +GP from accessories. In fact, what you can do is craft some accessories via GSM (for example, sunstone/danburite/malachite accessories pre-38, heliodor/goshenite/aquamarine accessories from 38 to 46, and amber/zircon/spinel accessories from 46 to 50), then spiritbond them as you mine, and break them down for materia.

[Allyrion]

Thanks for the comments everyone. So if I level goldsmith and not other classes then it will take me longer to get HQ items because of the lack of cross class skills requiring me to spend more money on material. If I level mining along side it then it will save me the money correct?

You just won't be able to guarantee getting HQ on a two-star item with only GSM. It's not about the materials, that's how it is with HQ mats.
Two star items are the only comparable to coil drops/myth tokens. It should be noted that in most cases, they still aren't as good.
Once they're overmelded, they're pretty close and can serve as upgrades until you get the drops or buy the gear with myth.

I think you should know that crafting really doesn't interact with the battle classes as much as in other games.
In other games, you might craft yourself a full end-game set (or at good bit of it) by picking up one craft.
It's not really like that here though. Even though GSM makes the accessories you still need to level the rest to make the two star ones(well to HQ them).

Crafting can be fun and interesting in its own right, but you can get by with your DoW/DoM without needing any crafted gear.
The two-star HQ items require you to get into all the crafting and it's much more of an investment than just buying the gear with myth or waiting for a drop.
Darklight is also not vastly inferior AND Crystal Tower will come out soon dropping item level 80 gear.

Even Yoshi has admitted that crafting doesn't have much interaction right now. They said that it will get better as crafters will make stuff for housing and pvp gear.
So to answer your pvp question, it probably won't be required but crafted pvp gear will probably be a viable alternative for gearing up.
He also mentioned that stats like -sleep duration or something (can't remember the exact example) will be more sought after in pvp. Maybe like fire/ice resistance against mages.
Crafting might allow you to control those stats more, and I'm guessing they may actually have materia slots! (PVE gear should have materia slots imo).
Thus, it'd be good to have the craft yourself.

As of right now though, crafting is more of a "closed loop" as Nenin said in "what is the point of crafting".
Mostly, crafters and gathers deal with other crafters and gatherers while DoW/DoM do their own thing and sometimes peek in for a vanya robe or a ring.
If you enjoy it though, it's a good way to take a break from your battle classes.
It's good for making gil as well. Culinarian is also really good imo, since my coil group always eats food.