Quote Originally Posted by Sigmakan View Post
God bless all the players putting up quest reward gear on AH for cheap prices.
^^^ This. What I did over the weekend: Every now and then, checked the MB for Wyvernskin and Dhalmelskin armor for LTW as well as accessories for GSM and hardsilver weapons for GSM (the GSM desynthable ones).

And then my wife and I sat in Asah and desynthed one hundred items each, me desynthing "Dhalmelskin Belts of ..." and her desynthing "Ramie Trousers of ..." before we realized we were being dumb and there were better choices. The crafter/gatherer items were cheaper and higher ilvl. All told, we leveled about 10-20 each, and obtained several million gil in mats. We got back about twice the money we spent, but crashed the Dhalmelskin, Ramie Cloth, and Holy Rainbow Cloth markets in the process. But, now that we have much higher success rates than when we started, we can do it again and if we sell the mats for half what we sold them for before, we'll still make at least 40% profit off of the sales. Especially if we use the better items. You can get up to dSkill 155-160 or so this way for LTW, WVR, and ARM.

I'll update the guide when I get around to it. Most of our findings are recorded in the desynth database though. Basically, the c51+ items appear to have a flat 33% chance to drop 1-3x worthless grade 2 demimateria. The other items appear to be evenly distributed. When there were two mats, we obtained one mat 1/3rd of the time, the other mat 1/3rd of the time, BC/FC demimateria 1/3rd of the time, and clears about 1% of the time. If the item had 3 materials in the recipe, it still dropped demis 1/3rd of the time, but the rest were dropped ~2/9ths of the time. I suspect this is because the mats were all of relatively equal ilvls. I've long suspected that the drop rates for items from desynth were weighted by their ilvl, which is why you get so much fewer Hard Hippogryph Leather than Spruce Lumber when desynthing Bridesmaid's Sandals. These all felt pretty equal, and the mats were pretty equal.

Also, our yields supported my theory that the number of a given item that you get is a random number between 1 and the maximum possible, each with equal probability. So, if you're getting Battecraft Demimateria IIs from an item and it can drop up to 3, you get 1x 1/3rd of the time, 2x 1/3rd of the time, and 3x 1/3rd of the time.

More testing is required, obviously.