Getting to Level 50 (a few questions)

[DoomKelly]

Hey there. So I've been leveling up my ARM skill and last night I hit a spot where I'm stuck on the level 45 ARM quest. As of now I have no other crafting skill leveled, and I am very aware that in order to make the HQ items it's asking my only guaranteed way of doing that is by leveing up other crafts to 50.
So my question is how do I get to level 50 if I can't finish the level 45 quest? Do you just skip the main quest and continue doing leves til 50? Do you still get the actions at level 50 once getting there or do you have to do the jobs main quest to unlock them?

Thanks in advance for your help.

[NJA]

That quest is a bit of a pain. I would stick with it as you'll need to unlock your level 50 class quest to get your level 50 tool. (You still get your skill at 50 regardless.) Your best bet is to use all HQ materials, which will start your quality bar half full and give you a reasonable HQ chance. It looks like you could also do with upgrading your gear a bit.

Alternatively, if you get completely stuck, you can just buy the HQ items from the market board and your character will happily pass them off as their own.

If you're interested in taking crafting further then the best advice is to get everything to level 15 first for the cross-class skills. Once you have access to them you will find it MUCH easier to craft.

[Divine_Intervention]

Hey there, I'm level 50 in three crafts myself, but a long way from doing 3 star recipes yet. However, on the leveling up process i found a few things useful:

1. The level 15 skills. Especially Culinary and Alchemy. These are Hasty Touch and Tricks of the Trade. Hasty touch gives you a 50% chance to increase quality, and costs no cp. ToTT allows you to turn a "good" condition into 20cp.

If you choose not to go through every craft to 15, i'd say at least go for those two, they make a world of difference. Combining Hasty Touch with Standard Synthesis raises the increase chance to 70, and culinary level 37 Steady Hand II raises that even further to 80%.

[Divine_Intervention]

damn this word limit!

2) Rotations. Using the above skills, you can do pretty well. One that helps, but ISN'T guaranteed (nothing is when talking about Hasty Touch, it's based on a random number generator) is : Inner quiet, Steady Hands/SH II, Hasty touch till ten durability. Use any "good" condition to get back some cp when you can. Then masters mend and rinse and repeat. Depending on your own gear (always try to go for close to current level, hq where possible), and just a bit of luck, you can HQ about 70% of the time on this till your stats are higher.

3) To your actual question, there are a few answers. One is the advice above. Another is you could give a crafter friend the materials needed to make your item, ask them to hq it for you. That should work out much cheaper than buying what you need from the market board.

I'm sure other crafters might have some advice to add, or point out things i have stated wrong, but I hope that helps you out!

[Shinzoku]

Apart from buying the item off the mb, you could ask ask a high level crafter to make it for you. If you bring them the mats, they would probably make it. I would anyways Someone in your fc possibly has arm leveled already. And for the well geared crafters, NQ mats are usually enough to HQ the crafting quest items.

[LineageRazor]

As others have mentioned, the level 15 skills make a world of difference.

Hasty Touch (Culinarian): Like Basic Touch, but with a 50% chance of failure and NO CP cost. Use Steady Hand first, and success increases to 70%. This might still seem bad, but all that CP you're not spending can go toward an additional Master's Mend, giving you more opportunities to improve Quality. Don't underestimate how much freedom not having to spend 18 CP per Basic Touch can give you, even if it means sacrificing some Durability on failed Touches!

Tricks of the Trade (Alchemist): Lets you sacrifice "Good" conditions for additional CP. This can really add up, once again allowing additional Master's Mends.

Rumination (Carpenter): Each successful Touch builds up a cache of CP you can redeem later. Before I obtained Byergot's Blessing, I used Rumination extensively, improving quality until I was flat out of CP, then using Rumination to get the CP I needed to finish the synth.

Other level 15 skills are nice to have, but not as important as these three. (At least, not for the level 45 class quest - you'll absolutely want Ingenuity if you get into high-level crafting at level 50.)

Also bear in mind that leveling any craft to 15 is EASY EASY EASY. You can obtain all ingredients for recipes up to level 15 VERY cheaply from the guild store. You don't have to buy anything on the marketboards! You can level any craft to 15 without ever leaving town, in fact.

[Waeksyn]

If you are serious at all about crafting, you will need all of the DoH jobs at level 50. If you want to focus on one or two of them, then you don't necessarily need to gear all 8 at 3 star level. The best way of doing this, IMO, is to level all of the jobs at the same time (including DoL). You'll find that requirements for leves on one job will often need crafted materials made by other jobs at a level just below the one you're working on. Same for DoL mats. When you do them all at the same time, you also are able to easily HQ craft all of your gear as you move up (you'll need to use HQ mats - which you gather or craft yourself). When you clear a level across all jobs, you make new gear and convert the old gear, sell (or use) the materia and move on.

Progression through DoH and DoL is really dependent on HQ materials and final crafted item. If you are leveling DoL at the same time, you gather your HQ mats and sell the NQ ones. Same for farming mob drops. This creates positive cash flow and you'll find your wallet growing fatter as you progress.

Make no mistake, though, the process is not quick. If you spend your DF queuing wait times out gathering or farming, it's amazing how much you can accomplish. SB'ing while in dungeons where your performance won't suffer or while farming is also a good idea. The gil you make there can help accelerate the process.

Shinzoku is right that a high level crafter can HQ any (non-starred) item 100% of the time with all NQ materials and without using food.

[LineageRazor]

If you are serious at all about crafting, you will need all of the DoH jobs at level 50.

Just so you aren't scared TOO badly by this, so long as you get the level 15 cross-classes, there's still a lot you can do with a single class at level 50. My first tradecraft to 50 was Goldsmith, with all other tradecrafts at level 15. I was able to reliably HQ single-star recipes. Not 100% of the time - no crafting strategy that relies on Hasty Touch will ever manage that - but close enough that it was pretty rare to get a NQ.

I never attempted a double-star recipe until I had a few more skills (Peacock Ore was expensive, and I was too much of a chicken to risk it), but once I did it wasn't nearly as bad as I feared, and I suspect I would have had a high HQ rate even if I hadn't waited for those skills.

If leveling all crafts is too daunting, don't be discouraged; a single-50 crafter can still do quite well for themselves, even if a lot of recipes will be beyond their reach.

[AttacKat]

a single-50 crafter can still do quite well for themselves, even if a lot of recipes will be beyond their reach.

The lvl 50 skills I use to HQ 99% of 40 dura, and 100% 80 dura 1 and 2 star items from NQ mats, and to be able to *make* 3 star items -

ALC: Confort Zone
ARM: Piece by Piece (req for 3 star)
BSM: Ingenuity II
CRP: Byregot's Blessing
CUL: Steady Hand II (37)
GSM: Innovation
LTW: Waste Not II
WVR: Careful Synthesis II

So yeah, you can start making some gils with just one DoH at 50, but generally your base material cost will be high and profit low.

When you have ALL DoH at 50, that is when you start to make real gils using just NQ mats. Yes, even CUL is necessary because you to feed yourself a lot of Bouillabaisse.

jc

[Divine_Intervention]

i've got most of those, minus carpenter , armorer and bsm lvl 50. working on carpenter now. but due to monetary costs i'm going to be putting that down for a while and going to work on my gathering.

i seem to spend more on buying mats to make crafts to sell , to buy mats to make.. yeah you get it lol. so time to break that cycle and become self dependent for mats xD