For those who don`t get the problem with red scrips...

[Mayoyama]

I was a 2.X Omnicrafter in max-melded Artisan's.

Now....I can't even. I can barely afford turn-ins for blue scrips. Sure, I can take GSM or CUL to 60 and wait for the cheap lure or the Marion Glas or whatever it is called.

But...DAMN, SE. Seriously. I thought 20 mil going into the expansion was plenty. NOPE. ALL DA NOPE.

I started 3.0 with a similar amount of gil, and within 2 weeks I had not only 8/8 DoH to lv60 with M3 books, but also 3/3 DoL lv60... and I have managed to make back most of my costs within the past month. The secret? Gathering your own materials and not being ashamed to ask a few friends to help you out.

In fact, I often bartered my crafting skills in exchange for some materials I needed at the time.

One thing so many people overlook are the GC hand ins... A starred HQ item can net you up to half a level of exp!! (not joking, I've got up to 1.8m exp from a single hand in)

Could I have leveled my crafts even faster? sure.. if I wanted to dump even more money into it.. but my DoLs levelled rather painlessly just gathering materials I needed for DoH, GC hand ins and collectables!

EDIT: I wont lie... having leveled retainers also helped out A LOT for certain materials (looking at you ltw....)