Newby needs some profession advice!

[Fel_Vulpix]

Hey everyone, I\\'m a noob. I just got lvl 10 in lancer and thought I should I try out some crafting. So far my carpentry is lvl 10 but it\\'s not looking like it\\'ll be too helpful since I\\'ll only be able to make lances and wooden shoes. What would be good professions for me (in planning on going for dragoon later) and how do I get to the ones outside of Gridina?

[Lakhi]

You'll get out of Gridania as you continue your Main Story Quests (around level 15). For DRG, Carpenter is a good crafting class to have, since you'll be able to make your spears, but I think Armorer (guild in Limsa Lominsa) would be useful as well for gear. Goldsmith (guild in Ul'dah) makes all the accessories. However, crafting classes are really dependent on each other, and it's most useful to level all of them at once. In reality though, it isn't too important to focus on until you've progressed a bit in the story, since you will need money to craft and that comes with playing the game.

Also, another thing you'll want to start thinking about when you get to Limsa Lominsa is levelling Marauder up to level 15 since you'll need it to unlock Dragoon when your lancer gets to level 30!

[mircanda]

just like battle classes its best to level them all to gain access to all the best cross class skills

[Niwashi]

There's two main reasons why people favor leveling all eight of the crafting classes:

1) Cross-class skills: At levels 15, 37, 50, and 52, each crafting class gets a different skill, but one that can be assigned as a cross-class skill (available to use on other crafting classes once you've learned it on the one it's native to). Nearly all the level 15 ones are really helpful. Culinarian has a really good level 37 one. And the level 50 skills are all important too by the time you reach recipes in that level range. So a good early goal is to get all the DoH classes to level 15 to use that first set of cross-class skills. Then aim for the Steady Hand II skill from level 37 Culinarian. Once you get those, the next useful ones aren't until level 50 which will take quite a bit longer, but an eventual goal would be to get all eight classes up to 50. (I haven't gotten to the level 52 ones myself so can't say from personal experience, but I believe the level 52 skills have their uses occasionally, but none are real game changers.)

2) Materials: Most finished products aren't made entirely from raw materials, but also with intermediate materials that have already been processed. Carpenter turns logs into lumber before turning that lumber into anything from spears to spinning wheels. But the use of those intermediate materials isn't limited to the class that makes them. For example, when a carpenter makes a Bronze Spear it doesn't just use the Maple Lumber that comes from a CRP recipe, but also a Bronze Ingot that comes from an Armorer or Blacksmith recipe, and Fish Oil that comes from an Alchemist recipe. In the earliest levels, you can just buy these materials from an NPC, but as you get into higher levels, you'll need more advanced materials that the NPCs don't sell. At that point, you'll need to get crafted materials, and if you can't craft them yourself, then you're at the mercy of whatever prices other crafters are selling them for on the Market Board. While at times the Market Board is a nice convenience, it can get really expensive to be limited to it as your only option.

For making your own materials, keeping the classes near the same level works best. The items a level X recipe needs can be made by level X (or earlier) in their respective classes. Keeping them near the same level also keeps your gear requirements simpler, since your DoH classes share the same gear if they're at the same level.

For DRG, Carpenter is a good crafting class to have, since you'll be able to make your spears, but I think Armorer (guild in Limsa Lominsa) would be useful as well for gear. Goldsmith (guild in Ul'dah) makes all the accessories.

Plus keep in mind that the crafting classes will need their own gear as well. Weaver makes most of their clothes, along with occasional pieces from Leatherworker. Blacksmith makes most of their tools.

[Niwashi]

There's a couple early thresholds in progressing the Main Scenario that are important for crafting:

1) There's a level 15 quest that unlocks airship travel to the other two main cities. Since you started in Gridania, that quest will be "The Gridanian Envoy" (with equivalent quests for people who started in one of the other cities). This gives you access to reaching the other guilds and unlocking their classes. You've already seen that the Carpenter and Leatherworker guilds are in Gridania. The Weaver, Goldsmith, and Alchemist guilds are in Ul'dah. And the Culinarian, Blacksmith, and Armourer guilds are in Limsa Lominsa.

You can actually reach the Ul'dahn ones before that quest by going there overland. Central Shroud -> South Shroud -> Eastern Thanalan -> Central Thanalan -> Ul'dah. But most players just wait until they have access to flying there directly. And since Limsa Lominsa is on an island that you can't reach by foot, you'll have to wait for airship access to get to those guilds.

2) There's a level 17 Main Scenario Quest, "Scions of the Seventh Dawn", that unlocks the ability to hire retainers. Those are NPC assistants who do several things for you, including storing excess items so you don't need to hold everything in your inventory, and selling items on your behalf on the Market Board. Their extra storage space is particularly important for crafters, as you'll soon be juggling far more types of materials than you can hold. And if, in addition to making your own items, you're also planning on using crafting to make money, then you'll want access to selling what you make.

[Rongway]

As people have pointed out, leveling all the crafters is best. For some, this might sound tedious, but you can steadily level all your crafters with as few as one synth per class per day.

After achieving the rank of Private Third Class in your grand company (your first promotion), you gain access to supply and provisioning missions. Your company's Personnel Officer will provide a daily list of one item per class that can be turned in for seals and experience. You can claim each class's reward once per day. If the item has a gold star next to it, the GC is offering twice the usual reward for that item. If you turn in a high quality item, you'll receive double the listed reward. The bonuses for gold star and HQ stack. I don't remember how good the rewards are early on, but in the 50s, a single HQ turn in for a gold star request can reward as much as 2,500,000 xp for a single class, so it's worth it to do the gold star requests, at least.

You can check the list of items and the time until the list resets using /timers and selecting "[GC insignia] Next Mission Allowance".

If you do these regularly, you can level the classes that you don't want to focus on without having to divert too much attention from the classes you actually want to level.

[Silingfasi]

If you lasy you can ignore craft at all or stick to grindanians - carpenter (but not so shure) and leather because animal skins easily obtained through playing.
Many gear you will get from quests and dungeons. For exampe: on 15 lvl you can do training quest line and you will be awarded with good armor set.

[Fel_Vulpix]

First of all, thanks for the quick and helpful replies everyone. Secondly, I've got an update and more questions! I've been learning how to use botany and I wailed on some trees and worked through the gathering journal to get up lvl 7 - I noticed that I don't get XP as quickly from gathering as I did from my carpentry. Is there a threshold where the xp gain levels out to carpentry or visa versa? And how come all of the bees are lolygagging about by the river while I rip honeycombs off of their beehives?

[Urthdigger]

First of all, thanks for the quick and helpful replies everyone. Secondly, I've got an update and more questions! I've been learning how to use botany and I wailed on some trees and worked through the gathering journal to get up lvl 7 - I noticed that I don't get XP as quickly from gathering as I did from my carpentry. Is there a threshold where the xp gain levels out to carpentry or visa versa? And how come all of the bees are lolygagging about by the river while I rip honeycombs off of their beehives?

Gathering doesn't require resources... in fact, it CREATES resources. That's why it tends to be slower than crafting, technically you're also investing time into crafting when you do whatever it is you do to get materials (gathering them or earning gil to buy them). That said, if you're gathering your own resources to do your own crafting, you'll likely find your gathering classes outlevel your crafting ones.

[Niwashi]

I noticed that I don't get XP as quickly from gathering as I did from my carpentry. Is there a threshold where the xp gain levels out to carpentry or visa versa?

If you're focusing on just those two, gathering enough wood to use leveling carpenter isn't going to level your botanist as fast as your carpenter. You could make up the difference either by gathering excess materials to sell and make some gil in the process (once you unlock the ability to sell stuff on the market board), or by doing gathering Levequests (Have you unlocked Leves yet? I think you're around the level for that).

If you pick up the other DoH classes, then gathering wood for your carpenter, cotton for your weaver, and all the assorted plants that culinarian cooks should should provide enough BTN XP to keep your botanist up to date with them all (or often, as Urthdigger said, a bit ahead).

(Similarly, if miner is gathering only enough to supply goldsmith for instance, it can fall behind, but will keep up when supplying blacksmith, armourer, and goldsmith.)


And as for those bees, who knows. Dumb inattentive bees I guess.