New player, a few questions!

[Geesus]

1) When I need to have gear repaired, do crafters prefer you do the "Offer (item)" thing and just offer the Dark Matter needed, or would they rather have gil as the payment for repairs? Obviously, this might be dependent on the person, but just curious as to what most people normally do.

Personally, I really don't care. If you don't have the matter then the gil is fine even if it's just to cover the price of the matter. Repairs are so simple that for me to "charge" anyone more then that would be silly. Usually, a "tip" is nice.

Good luck and welcome to Eorzea!!!!

[Panacea]

Hey all, found my way into the game a few days ago and I'm enjoying it quite a bit so far. However I've also got a question on equipment levels. The forum explanations arent super clear so can we touch on this one more time please?
Item level vs class level- regarding weapons and tools: How much of a penalty is there for using an item above your craft rank?
Saw in a bs guide people saying get your birdsbeak asap- much higher success rates when skilling at low levels.

With that in mind I found a dodofeather? Pickaxe for 19k and snapped it up. As well as a steel head knife for leatherworking on the cheap, i.e. 25k or so. Did I screw myself there? Stats were better than the weathered gear I was using...

If I did should I backtrack and try to shoot for one tier above or below my current class rank? I know I'm in for a grind beating because to improve my chosen professions And gear I needed to skill up other professions, etc. No comment on the ash saw handle for my bronze saw!

I'm not looking at min maxing, just ways to improve my game and not inadvertantly gimp myself!

Thanks for the help and scuse any typos, smartphone post here!