How to level DOH

[Giantbane]

Yeah, I replied without quoting because I'm dumb. You may have convinced me to not level my DoL - it's time consuming, and I have 2-3 hours per night to play, and that includes running my daily expert and high-level. I just got my last Atma last night, and think I may take a break from Animus to level DoH. It seems like a nice change of pace, and it's not like Animus/Novus is going anywhere.

I'm also on Ultros. I'm sitting on ~600k gil right now. I don't mind going broke, since there's nothing I need to buy, but obviously I'd prefer to have money. I should level EVERYTHING DoH to 15, then WVR to 50 (going broke if I need to), CUL to 37, CRP to 50, and then GSM, then the others if I feel so inclined? How far do you think 600k will get me in that respect?

I'd almost think I'd prefer cheapest mats + $$ as opposed to XP, just because of the whole $$ aspect. Is the xp/$$ difference that great between those two extremes?

Like I said, I made $$ leveling up every single craft, but that was a little while ago and some of the materials are more expensive now. But you should still be able to do all of that for much less than you have. Getting everything to 15 should be really cheap since all the materials you should need are sold by the guild vendor for next to nothing. After that, I would say not to worry about a gathering classes unless you hit a point where the necessary materials are just far too expensive for you to continue.

The one exception to this is if you want your retainer to be a miner to help you making items to spiritbind. While I hate mining for myself, it is nice to be able to send the retainer out to gather all the necessary materials I need for crafting my own jewelry if I want to spirit bind. If you want to do this, then it would make sense to level up your mining also, since your retainer's level is limited by your level in that class (so you need a 50 miner for your retainer to be a 50 miner). Of course, that's 1 more thing to level (not including needing to level up your retainer too).


As far as XP vs. money, worst case quests will still give you 50% xp of the maximum so you're not losing *that* much. You *usually* want to avoid anything that says triple because those will be the most expensive. Courier quests will often be your best bet (especially if you have a free aetheryte destination) unless it requires particularly expensive materials because it still gives you a lot of xp (~90% of a triple turn in) but you make fewer items. The only problem with those can be travel costs between the Quest Giver in the main city and the Quest Receiver out in an outpost somewhere, but that can be mostly negated (see below). But in general, just use the link I provided (the values for those are still mostly correct) and the market board to compare the material costs of creating the item vs. the amount of experience and the rewards you get in return to figure out the cheapest way to level.

Mitigating courier travel costs:
Set your home point to the main city where the Quest Giver is. Set a favorite destination (use your free destination if you have one) to the outpost wherever the Quest Receiver is. Get the quest from the main city, teleport to your favored/free destination where the Quest Receiver is and turn in the quest. Then switch to a level 1 job (any level 1 job, a DoH class will do) and go get yourself killed. You resurrect back at the main city for free and can get the quest again.

[Giantbane]

sorry about that attack on the typo, bad day at work, and i had a bad time controlling myself earlier.

it might just be that the economy is better on your server, because it is a lot cheaper, although slightly time consuming, for the DoLs. i got botanist up to 50 in almost a week, but that has saved me over 100k just for crafting mats, and before i leveled botanist, there was no easy way for me to make money. i could gather shards, but that could only get you so far. the crafting mats arent sold in the kind of numbers you actually need for crafting, most are 33 to 99, and if you only need 15, youre paying a lot of extra gil for mats you might not need.

edit: i include in that the amount ive had to spend upgrading my gathering gear. so X amount of gil - gathering gear every 5 levels= roughly 100k.

Yea, I can definitely see the merit of doing the DoL class too. But I hate gathering so I just bought the materials and went that route. I was still able to find a relatively cheap levequest to use at every stage so this never became a problem for me, personally.

[monochromicorn]

one of the things that can be done is leveling a sub-class thats dps. you can use those wait times for gathering. you get quite a bit of gil. i sold a full stack of hazelnuts for almost 80k and around 20 HQ for about 20k. its easy money, and youre already having to wait. doingf that, you still level pretty fast until the 30s, at which point i started doing leves

[Yumi_umi]

Tou technically can go from level 1 - 50 in a day or 2 with only 100-150k gil.
Just make sure you have enough leves as after level 10 you start to get less exp from crafting new things soooooo.
Lvl 1-10 = craft stuff and get 1st time exp. Buy Ur matts from the supply NPC.
Lvl 10-50 = do SINGLE turn in leves. You get like 50-60% exp on a the bar so you just need to do 2 HQ single item turn in leves to level up.
Knowing this you need 10 leves per 5 levels. So u need roughly
5 levels = 10 leves
10 x 8 sets of level 5 = 80 leves!
Of course u can also speed it up by doing the GC mission HQ turn in. It usually nets you 50-70% i believe.
Triple turn ins are a waste of time, gil, shards and mats.
Just spam single leves and profit.

[Yumi_umi]

Since i leveled a weaver before most of my other crafts i'd go naked ( no crafting gear besides main hand/ off hand) and spam careful synth II.
I was able to craft stuff tht usually would be usually too high for me to complete but as a result i gained like 2 levels easily looool.
But yeah it's no probs if u got the gil!

[RayneBoemir]

I suggest leveling a few classes to at least level 15 to get certain cross skills. It doesn't take very long to get to level 15 and doesn't require anything but npc bought materials. I would level culinarian to 37 for steady hand 2.

[theimmortalbum]

Tou technically can go from level 1 - 50 in a day or 2 with only 100-150k gil.
Just make sure you have enough leves as after level 10 you start to get less exp from crafting new things soooooo.
Lvl 1-10 = craft stuff and get 1st time exp. Buy Ur matts from the supply NPC.
Lvl 10-50 = do SINGLE turn in leves. You get like 50-60% exp on a the bar so you just need to do 2 HQ single item turn in leves to level up.
Knowing this you need 10 leves per 5 levels. So u need roughly
5 levels = 10 leves
10 x 8 sets of level 5 = 80 leves!
Of course u can also speed it up by doing the GC mission HQ turn in. It usually nets you 50-70% i believe.
Triple turn ins are a waste of time, gil, shards and mats.
Just spam single leves and profit.

Oh, I have all 99 leves ready. I think this might be what I do tonight. Classes to 15, then WVR to 50!

[RentisB]

You should probably level them all to 15 without leves, the levels are so fast before 15 and the mats are so cheap(all vendor mats before 20~)

After that I'd suggest the "courier" leve. Every set of 3 has one leve that requires you make one item and turn it in somewhere else. If it's HQ it takes about 2.5leves per level (so about 12 items per 5 levels) The way to do this cheaply would be to find a crafter with the craft you're working on already an get them to craft you the 12 HQ items per 5 levels since the price of mats are going to be super small. If it's a friend you won't have to pay a lot of a tip either.

If you want to do it more legit, I'd suggest pick a DoL (like botany for weaving as an example) and do them together. This site has a list of all the leves, you can see the courier one for each craft/level. It takes more time than the triple turn in but you get more XP.

BG Craftsmanship Leve list

Just an example. I recently finished ARM to 50(my last 50!) and it cost me maybe 75k in mats from 15-50. I had a 50 friend HQ me the 12 turn ins per level group and then I spent a few hours turning em all in. So <100k and 2 hours for a full 50 is not too shabby. Now I have 50 in all of them and I can do this in return to my friends who don't have a 50. The only limiting factor leveling this way is your total leves. Sadly you can really only do this one craft every few weeks because of how many it takes, but it's cheap and fast.

Lastly the triple turn in Leve has not been the best/cheapest way to level since they nerfed the leve xp in like 2.1? Anyway the courier one is by far the most efficient/cheapest way to go as all it really costs you is some more time vs more items.

[Thaliss]

As side note OP wants to make jewelry to spiritbond to upgrade his animus to novus.

It is simplier/faster to just farm some gil buy the jewelry/gear you want to spiritbond.

Not saying you can't have fun leveling your craft, I did and I am happy with it

[TomTom1968]

A good way to get some excercise on your way to Level 50 is to not only rely on Leves but also trying to craft all items from your crafting log at least one time. You learn a lot about crafting this way, can make some extra GIL and craft items for your own supply (alts, spiritbonding, FC mates helping etc.). It is surely not the most effective way but when I see crafters who are Level 50 and don't know how to craft a non star item in HQ, I compare them to people in ilevel 100+ items who have not seen more than a few 4 man dungeons and a hell lot of FATES. They raised their level but they have no clue about anything because they lack experience and basic knowledge.