New to Crafting

[Steady]

So getting tired of having to track down people to meld/craft, and feeling like a burden for asking, I now have GSM to 50.

I had also planned to level Armorer and Blacksmith, if only to continue the flexibility of melding/overepairing, etc. Also thought perhaps I could have it ready by Heavensward for Machinist/Dark Knight fun

So... I know cross class plays a big importance in the ability to HQ things.. and frankly I'm not even entirely clear on the correct ways to use what I already got. For example.. Innovation.. I don't notice any significant difference when I use it over not. I'm about 25 BSM right now.. and I don't really see Ingenuity helping me much either.

I pretty much just rely on Hasty Touch, Great Strides, Inner Quiet, and Steady Hand.

So what cross classes can I not live without? And any tips in particular to offer?

[Werhusky]

For endgame crafting you want all crafts...
1st - you make your own base items - saves A LOT gil
2nd - crossskills you use if you are good (beware im a casual 3 star crafter here :P ) you will yuse partwise different skills for different crafts due to durability and % chance of skill sucess
3rd - you can repair yourself... seeing expansion hitting level incresing will be 10 lvl atm you need level 40 to repair level 50 stuff... counting back youll need level 50 to repair level 60s (this counting back always worked fine for new towers so i actually dont doubt that)
4th - you can access more custumers with more crafts

For rotations use http://www.ffxivcrafter.com/ I really have no clue there im just derping through it all.

Crafts I recommend for cross are definitely wvr, bsm (ull love ing 2 later on believe me <3 ), gsm, ltw but Id never say leave out the rest

[baopee]

Crafting guide

http://ffxivrealm.com/guides/ff14-ad...ie-tsukino.39/

[Nym-Phox]

Crafting guide

http://ffxivrealm.com/guides/ff14-ad...ie-tsukino.39/

I finally finished reading through this guide today, and as a fairly new crafter (only 50 CRP/WHV) it's incredibly helpful. Gives tips for why skills are needed, how to go about progressing, and for me most of all told the difference between each grade of tool and gear from a stat perspective.

[baopee]

BiS and melding

http://www.ffxivguild.com/ff14-arr-d...materia-melds/

video guides (you will have to run search to find what you are looking for, he has tons of video no his channel, if you have question you can send him a msg)

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2F...linjwkqYQh6DHQ

[Nyalia]

Innovation only really matters when you get CRP to 50. You'll only really get a benefit on big hits. For instance, on a 4* craft, I typically get 500 quality just from Innovation if I use it after Great Strides and before Byregot's Blessing.

You absolutely need to get CRP to 50 to do endgame crafting. All other classes are varying levels of usefulness.

As far as crossclass skills go, here's the advice I generally give people. Prioritize these crafts levels, in this order:

1. CUL 15 (Hasty Touch)
2. ALC 15 (Tricks of the Trade), LTW 15 (Waste Not), WVR 15 (Careful Synthesis) in whatever order you feel like
3. CUL 37 (Steady Hand II) - there's a huge difference between a Hasty Touch with a 70% chance and a Hasty Touch with an 80% chance, and between a Basic Touch at 90% and a Basic Touch at 100%
4. CRP 50 (Byregot's Blessing) - BB is basically required for high level HQ
5. WVR 50 (Careful Synthesis II) - I find this skill insanely useful and I'm in love with it, but to be perfectly honest, this skill is just another CP saver; BSM 50 (Ingenuity II), GSM 50 (Innovation) - various forms of quality/progress buffs; very nice, not required, heavily used in many rotations
6. ALC 50 (Comfort Zone), ARM 50 (Piece by Piece) - as nice as 14, 28, or 42 extra CP is from Comfort Zone, I wouldn't call it a requirement for any synth, just very nice to have; don't get me wrong, Piece by Piece is great, but most of the time it winds up saving you just one step (generally valued at 28 CP). In other words, these two are various forms of CP savers. Very nice, but not really required

LTW's level 50 skill is almost entirely useless. I sometimes do use it, but many crafters will laugh at me for saying that :P However, that said, having LTW at 40 is incredibly nice for repairing your own gear, and having it at 50 is nice for melding your own gear. Also, if you want to craft your own gear, a lot of crafter (and gatherer) gear is LTW-synthable. And, it's nice to be able to make your own LTW glamour prisms (need a class at level 50 to do that). So... as useless as LTW's level 50 skill is, having an LTW at 50 is far from useless.

CUL's level 50 skill is totally skippable. It raises the chance of saving mats when you fail a synth from the normal 50% to 90%. However, it's not 100% (you can still lose everything from a failed synth), it doesn't protect you from DCing mid-synth (which destroys all mats), and you can avoid needing it by just not messing up any synths. I'd just get CUL to 37 for one of the best skills in the game and then leave it there.

Some people will disagree with my ranking of BSM/GSM/ALC/ARM. Some consider Piece by Piece to be required for certain synths, and some see ALC's CP boost as insanely powerful. I, on the other hand, find BSM and GSM's ability to push the final hit of your synth out by 1-2 steps while not wasting any CP to be extremely important. Getting a Good at the end for the Byregot's Blessing can be the difference between a 20% and a 100%. I'd take the buffs over the extra CP any day.

EDIT: As much as I love Careful Synthesis II (WVR's 50), it really is just another CP saver. Many synths I do end with 2x CS2, and I usually have at least one step of Steady Hand still active when I get to this point. In this situation, instead of 2x Careful Synthesis II, you can simply use Standard Synthesis + Careful Synthesis I. Both give the same exact amount of progress (240%), but the Standard Synthesis one costs 15 CP while the other is free. So, I really love WVR 50, but to be perfectly honest, you could live without it. However, like LTW (and ARM), having WVR at 50 is very nice for repairs, melds, crafting/gathering equipment synthing, and glamour prisms.



Some gearing-up advice I posted in another thread:

To be as economical as possible, once you hit 50 with a class, I recommend getting the AF gear for that class, the i55 belt/accessories, the Militia offhand tool, and the blue i55 primary hand tool that you get from the level 50 class quest. Then, meld everything but the headgear and the offhand (starting with the accessories). Then, craft the turn-in token items that you can trade in for the i70 Artisan's set (starting with the spectacles)

So, start with http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/PNUT. Once there, meld your accessories to get to http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/PNUY, and then meld some craftsmanship materia into a few of your body pieces and/or offhand 100% slots until you have 347 Craftsmanship (minimum required to craft 2* recipes), something like this: http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/PNV1. Then, make the tokens to turn in for the i70 Artisan gear, resulting in http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/PNV2. Then, for each class, craft the turn-in items for the i70 Artisan's main hand tool. Once you have all the main hand Artisan's tools, you will be able to craft up to 3* recipes with every class, and you only had to meld your accessories.

This is a very cheap way to get all classes up to the 3* level. Getting all classes to 4* is much harder, but this path should jumpstart your crafting. From there, you can start working on your Supra tools, Lucis tools, assembling the funds for the i60 crafted Artisan's set (tends to go for 1-2 million a piece with current prices), and getting the Artisan's offhand tools for each class.

[baopee]

if you can save some gils while you are leveling your crafters, try to get Artisan's gears chest, pants, gloves and shoes, since they are share-able, you will save a lot of gils on overmelding.