Question for the Crafters

[Nutz]

A lot of people are fans of leveling everything at once. I went back and forth on it. Pretty much got everything to 15, then several things to 37, then finished up WVR, GSM, BSM, CRP, LTW, ARM, CUL, ALC in that order. I didn't rush things the way a lot of others do though. I used leves and all (after 30) but only with items that I made (and only the HQ results) so frequently I'd get a level or two just crafting the stuff in preparation to do a leve. Gathered everything (except fish and components I couldn't yet make from another class), which isn't too painful if you're actually leveling your gatherers. Usually if leves for that tier were bad (require expensive or otherwise difficult to obtain items) I stuck to spamming a 'staple' of some kind like wool > woolen yarn > woolen cloth with rested (if possible), and GC exp buff (was never lucky enough to have FC exp buff).

The cost is really tied to how quickly you want to level and how much gathering you'd like to do. If you want to gather everything and speed isn't that important you'll actually make money leveling your crafts all to 50. If you want it done very quickly then you can pay a decent sum of money for HQ leve/quest turn ins and run up quite a tab over time.

[JonBigwood]

Hi, there is very good advice on the posts before.

In my case I tried to not make it a second job or a chore, and since you probably use leves, from time to time I ceased to level the crafters, accumulated leves and rested from the grind. When time passed I recovered the interest on crafting and leveled some more. Many times when I finished a relic quest phase, I turned to level a craft, later focused more on the relic, or leveling a battle class, then again a crafer, etc.

You don't have to be high level to start to make gil, look what items sell quickly and at good profit and make one of it, when it sells make another etc. Usually you will be saving gil until you go back to leveling another craft, that is always an expense you can recover from later.

Sometimes the items you need to turn in for the leves are for sale at the market board and not too expensive, have a look just in case.

In my case I leveled all to 15 (except ARM) soon, then worked towards the class skills I wanted, instead of leveling all at the same pace. The more classes you have, the easier it will be since you can make the mats for one class with the others, many times. For example, if you have a high BSM you can make the HQ ingots for the ARM and getting HQ items will be much easier.

If you don't level all or most classes to 50 you won't be able to craft the most difficult crafts and it will be difficult to obtain HQ, but you can make gil with that level 50 class while you level the others and finally get all the cross-class skills. There are threads that say what cross class skills are needed more urgently.

[Iagainsti]

Leves Leves Leves. I cant stress that enough. Armorer from 20-45 on just steel and mythril ingots. GSM 45-50 with electrum needles, only took 12 HQ turn ins. The list goes on. wait for your leves to fill up, fast level a craft clas. Was, rinse, repeat.

[CodeCass]

So I honestly never knew you had a finite number of Leves available to you until recently. I've been using them fairly frequently to level my NIN. Am I hurting myself in the long run? Last I checked I think I had somewhere in the neighborhood of about 89 Leve Allowances (or whatever it's called). But that's been a few days ago.

[Iagainsti]

I've been using them fairly frequently to level my NIN. Am I hurting myself in the long run? Last I checked I think I had somewhere in the neighborhood of about 89 Leve Allowances (or whatever it's called). But that's been a few days ago.

Nope, while the content(main quests, side quests, dungeon unlocks) are quite enough to get you to 50, Leves make it faster your first play through. I would recommend using leves for any other class you want to grind up quick. 6 leves are gained every 12 hours. If you hit 99, spend a quick 12 leveling some DOW/DOM class you just wanted to try out. Honestly, might take an hour, but itll be 2-5 levels quick. When doing DoH/DoL classes, buy xp manuals from your GC HQ for 2k seals and craft/ farm until you hit 15(roughly 90 mins) then wait till you have 80 leves, 15-50 takes roughly 4 hours( quicker if you have a friend who can HQ everything for you while your passing the levequests in).

[Niwashi]

Leve allowances that you've used up will regenerate. You get a few back (I forget exactly how many) every 12 hours until they max out at 99. So if it looks like you have used up a few too many, it just means you should do something else for a few days while the allowances build back up.

[Roth_Trailfinder]

Leve allowances that you've used up will regenerate. You get a few back (I forget exactly how many) every 12 hours until they max out at 99. So if it looks like you have used up a few too many, it just means you should do something else for a few days while the allowances build back up.

Its 3 every 12 hours, yes.

Max is 100, not 99.

[Nyalia]

re: craft leveling:

Courier leves are the cheapest way to level any crafter class (after you do your Ixali dailies, of course). It generally takes 11 HQ items to get 5 levels with courier leves. Courier ones are the ones that start in the craft's home city (Limsa for BSM, ARM and CUL. Gridania for CRP and LTW. Ul'dah for WVR, ALC, and GSM) and end in another zone (25-29: Quarrymill (I think?), 30-34: Costa del Sol (I think?) 35-39: Coerthas (Observatory), 40-44: Coerthas (Whitebrim), 45-49: Mor Dhona (St. Coinach's Find)).

You can get a crafter from level 15 to level 50 by spending ~80 leves. Have a friend (or hire someone) to craft the items for you if you want, and you can get a class all the way to 50 in as much time as it takes to teleport 160 times. (Hint: you can set the home city as your free teleport spot and the away location as favored and cut the costs down by 75%, OR you can find someone else who is also doing this, you each set one of the two spots as your free spot, you party up, and you alternate who teleports, making the ports 100% free for both of you.)

You get 12 leves a day, so this means you can get a craft from 1-50 per week for a week with minimal effort. If that's too slow for you, there are plenty of other options, but the lazy way to level your crafts is to do this for one class one day a week - should only take you a few hours. Then, when you've spent 80 leves all at once, you don't spend any until the same time the next week when they've all come back. Two months of minimal effort to get all crafts to 50 is a good deal.

[Shadygrove]

The reason why I am a fan of everything at once is because at first I didn't.

I took weaver to 50, then goldsmith, then started on leatherworker. Somewhere, long before my first 50, I took everything to 15.

But when leatherworker got to 40something I realized I was doing it WRONG. Then I started leveling everything in parallel. A lot with GC turnins, a few with levequests (hint, you can mostly level alchemy with levequests off the market boards), some by making and selling stuff.

The thing about leveling in parallel is that you can usually get lots of crafting materia from spiritbonding your gear. This can help you in several ways.

Also it lets you HQ most of your gear along the way. Again, this helps you.

I leveled mining and botany too. I did a LOT of my goldsmith leveling 41+ while leveling Miner 41+ on electrum ore by quick synthing the ore into ingots.

[Ksenia]

I had Weaver to 50 from 1.00 and everything else got leveled in synchronicity in ARR. I did it in synch because I was OCD about having up to date HQ gear that I made myself, through Weaver mostly and I would take each craft to the next set of gear so I only ever had one set in the Armory. It didn't cost me anything to level them. I'd only do HQ turn in's for Leve and usually all I did were triple turn in's.

My biggest throttle was Shards. Because I would make huge amounts of stuff I was using them in the thousands and I hated shard grind. I still do.