Making decent money from pure gathering/selling raw materials. possible?

[JMadFour]

If I expect to make even a decent amount of gil, will I HAVE to take a crafter class along with my gathering?

I dislike crafting. I always dislike crafting in every MMO. I like going out into the world and gathering materials, but the actual "making stuff" part just doesnt resonate with me.

I understand that this means I will have to find someone to meld for me, when I get to that point. But I am wondering if just gathering and selling the mats can be profitable. At least enough that I can start saving up money for a FC room, and then a House. Or is it just not worth it without a crafting class?

[Estellios]

On my server there's a good amount of materials that you can make some steady money on. Nothing gigantic but it's some nice profits. Just check your market boards and see what is in demand and sells for a good price.

[Woggers]

Yeah there is some stuff you can gather that you can cash in on, but the big money items as usually the lvl50+ gathering nods that you will need HQ equip with melds. I would recommend leveling up Weaver Leather and Goldsmith for equip and melds.

[Lollie]

The issue with going material selled only is their price is very volatile. You can make money this route and a lot of it but, you need to keep a diverse set of goods and be prepair to relist items as the market changes a lot. The easier it is for you to get the easier it is for someone else to get. The higher the profit margine the more likely someone will notice and start undercutting.

[Anova]

As mentioned, gathering can be very profitable, but it requires constant attention. There are a lot of price wars in the commodities market so to speak.

Keep an eye out on the market and learn to check an item's sell history. Be aware that many rare items that sell for a lot of money can only be obtained through monster drops, raids, or desynth. Players will still use higher level crafting mats though, but your frequent sellers will be in the lv.30-45 range for consumables (potions and glamours) and disposable spiritbinding gear.

Be aware of undercutting though, as too many people will hop on a hot commodity and saturate the market, turning the mats worthless for weeks at a time. Learn the crafting lists and be ready to sell the second item involved in the craft when the market shifts (demand is still there, supply on one of the mats just gets oversaturated).

Knowing crafters and raiders is a good way to find what sells. One of the biggest items for endgame raiding was mega-strength potions. These potions require shark oil, and demand for the mats single-handedly revived fishing on Leviathan server.

Also, consider weaver, leatherworker, goldsmith, and culinarian if you choose to level crafters. These will let you make your own sb gear, saving you tons on materia, and you can acquire desynth to get rare mats for the latest gear (allagan silk/leather and demimateria)

[Nutz]

You can make decent money this way. I have all crafters at at 50 as well as BOT and MIN. Only my MIN is actually fully melded so the majority of my income comes from that class. New items have a ridiculously volatile price. As you might expect, platinum sold very high for a short period of time and is now pretty low (though still not too low to bother with if you're adequately equipped). High end staples have fairly stable prices, but markets can crash. Usually just hang on to supply if you notice a downward trend on the boards. It will almost certainly bounce back unless it was used for a very small number of synths that nobody would really need to repeat.

[Sessurea]

Grade 4 carbonized matter = good gil now, with many people melding all types of gear that was introduced in this patch. At least on odin every time I visit the node = 20k gil.

Inspecting what clusters the market is currently lacking can also be quite profitable ( if you are on a server where the market even sees a shortage of such )

Electrum ore is always good to sell, but then, it's always far better to use for crafting than to sell..

[Recaldy]

Get to lv 50 and gather a piesteskin map and sell it. Should get an easy 10k+ a day for maybe 15 minutes of effort.

[Garlyle]

There's a variety of materials that actually sell pretty well. The trick is knowing which ones are in high demand.

For instance, around level 25-35 Goldsmiths need a lot of Silver Ingots to do anything (And those silver ingots are also used by other classes). They need Silver Ore for that. That's a market you can tap into. If nobody's touched that market in a while you could be making 300gil per piece, or more. However, you'd have to go look into your server's market boards yourself to see if that market isn't already crowded out.

Finding those markets with demand and fulfilling them is the secret to making money from gathering classes, at least pre-50. Once you hit 50 there's special options that start opening up.

[FyrmurlFloerasksyn]

I make most of my money selling shards