Confused SAM Main looking to start DoH

[Silverbane]

I'd say that if you are taking a craft to 50 you may as well take it to 70.

I'd say people with different priorities or available time might well choose otherwise.

Myself, I'm not arrogant enough to think my criteria are the only criteria, or my choices the only right ones.
Not everyone has the time or the desire to level one omni-crafter-gatherer, much less two like I have.

And besides, the game is so dumbed down in 4.0, there's not really any need to be an omni-crafter, unless you impose so many "if you wanna this" and "if you wanna that" conditions that you foreclose any other option. But not everyone wants to do those things. Not everyone minds buying finished mats of the MB. You can still make a profit doing that, in fact, your profit per time spent might even be higher. And time is what you're investing, everything else springs from it.

Culinarian, for example: you hardly even need food anymore, so where's the payback in leveling a L54-60 CUL up to 70? It's a bad investment right now. Sure, you can level it on speculation that some future patch will make it important again. Or you can wait and see. If you have better things to do with your time (for example, having a life outside the game) the wait-and-see path is definitely something to consider.

Now if you want to level CUL or any other class, feel free. It's a game, doing what you want is important, because heaven knows they make you slog through enough stuff you don't want to do. But don't level CUL to 70 based on some forum guru opining that "you might as well." Life is too short for that.

[ChameleonMS]

I've noticed that crafted gear in FFXIV is easily outweighed to what you can find in a dungeon. So this has me confused on why to even take up crafting? Am I missing something or just not understanding the end game of crafting.

SE has specifically designed crafted gear to be raid quality entry level. Thus, i320 crafted gear is good enough to allow you start doing Deltascape Savage v1.0 right away. The crafted gear cannot be better than the current raid tier gear, or is would ruin the value of the raid gear. The crafted gear does maintain usefulness because of the gear lockout systems in place, it is fastes way to gear up alternative jobs to end game utility.

I like to be self sufficient, but SAM gear seems to be a mix of cloth and leather. Food and potions seems really cheap to buy on the MB as well so I didn't know if taking up Alchemy and Culinary was worth it.

The more Crafting and Gathering classes you level up, the more self sufficient you can become.

But I'm also deeply confused as to what even makes DoH worth it?

GIL, Self sufficiency and versitility. Almost all crafters that even remotely try can make more GIL than s/he knows what do with.

I'm a SAM main and want to know where to start out for DoH so I can be self sufficient and benefit my SAM.

Crafting for Beginner's:
With release of Stormblood, the single crafter has become viable but the single crafter success is limited by a few factors.
1. The skills which make single crafting viable are not learned until you pass 60.
2. The cross class skills (lv15, 37 and 50) are frequently still stronger than their single DoH counter parts.
3. There are some pretty heafty gear / difficulty jumps between 50-51 and again between 60-61.

Always attempt to achieve as much Quality as possible because your XP increases greatly for quality.
e.g. A craft done at 0% quality will earn 100xp, if you can increase the quality to 100%, 300xp will be granted. A 200% additional xp bonus. It is a non-linear sliding scale down for the XP.

My advice will focus on OMNI crafter (all 8 DoH) perspective.
First get all your crafters to 15 to gain access to all basic cross crafting skills.
Levelling from 1 - 15 is pretty simple, complete your crafter log for first time bonus and nearly all the materials you will need are purchasable from vendors. If you have membership in an Free Company, the Materials Supplier has nearly everything you need for all crafts at very cheap prices.
Then get them all to 50 (CUL and GSM 54) to gain access to full set cross class crafting skills. These skills allow you to reliably make High Quality (HQ) items with Normal Quality (NQ) materials.

Level 15 cross class skills:
ALC - Tricks of the Trade
CUL - Hasty Touch
BSM - Ingenuity (repalced by Ingenuity II at lv50)
WVR - Careful Synthesis (replaced by Careful Synthesis II/III at lv50/62)
ARM - Rapid Synthesis (replaced by native Skill Rapid Synthesis II at lv63)
CRP - Rumination (replaced by Byregot's Blessing/Brow at lv50/51)
LTW - Waste Not (replaced by Prudent Touch at lv66)
GMS - Manipulation (slightly less expensive alternative to Master's Mend)

Level 37 cross class skills:
CUL - Steady Hand II
GMS - Flawless Synthesis (which until 3.2 was affectionately class Useless Synthesis and since Stormblood returned to that status)

Level 50 cross class skills:
ALC - Comfort Zone
ARM - Piece by Piece (Useful for very high level crafting with a lot of difficulty; two uses is 50% completion a third use is gear dependent)
BSM - Ingenuity II
CRP - Byregot's Blessing
CUL - Reclaim
GMS - Innovation
LTW - Waste Not II (Replaced by Manipulation II lv65)
WVR - Careful Synthesis II (Replace by Careful Synthesis III if you have the CP)


Levelling all your DoH classes is expensive, you pay with time or GIL.
Lower Gil with higher time, if you gather your own materials.
Truck loads more Gil, with way less time, if you buy your materials from the market board. Many, many base materials can be purchase from in game vendors at significantly lower prices than the Market Board.
Do the Beast Tribes to unlock additional vendors and materials.

To assist in your crafter leveling the Ixal Beast Tribe is available after completing the quest In Pursuit of the Past.
It unlocks the quest A Bad Bladder. This is available after lv41.

To further assist you, Moogle Beast Tribe is available after completing the quest Laying the First Brick.
It unlocks the quest Tricks and Stones. This is available after lv53.

DoW Gil Guide, you need GIL to pay for your crafting. At least until you have the skills to make items HQ that population wants to buy from you.

References:
Caimie's Crafting Guide something every crafter should read at least once.
Crafting Simulator for practising different rotations without burning your materials. This is fan generated site so the accuracy of the results can be a little suspect from time to time. It is generally pretty accurate.

End game gathering from timed nodes:
FFXIV Clock
Unspoiled Nodes
Fisher Reference.
Emphemial Nodes gathering rotation.

Desynthesis Guide a source of rare materials for the very ambitious.

End game Gear setups:
Gear Guide for end game crafting.
Ariyala Toolkit


Crafting HQ follows some basis rules:
1. Turn on Inner Quiet to start
Each successful quality touch will increase your Inner Quiet stacks. Each increase makes your next quality touch stronger by 20%. Inner Quiet has no effect on completion.

2. Start your craft by getting your completion to within one Synthesis of 100%, then work on quality.
Using skills such Muscle Memory, Piece by Piece or Rapid Synthesis I/II for very large completion gains are needed for high level crafting.

3. Use skills to restore/conserve your CP.
Comfort Zone, costs 66 CP but over 10 steps, restores 80, thus, +14 effect.
Hasty Touch and Rapid Synthesis, costs 0 CP as the expense of RNG.
Tricks of the Trade, restores 20 CP for each use.

4. Use skills to buff your skills.
Steady Hand (22 CP), Steady Hand II (25 CP), increase reliablitiy of your actions.
E.g. Pop Steady Hand II, the use Hasty Touch mutliple times. This will give you an 80% success rate on 5 quality touches costing 0 CP.
Great Strides doubles your next touch effectiveness.
Innovation increases your skill for up to 3 touches.

Ineguity I/II is generally only required for crafts above your own level. Generally these the * crafts for each tier. Recepies in the Master Books.

5. Use skills to restore/conserve your Durabitliy.
Masters Mend I/II, Manipulation I/II, Waste Not I/II
For Durability 70/80 crafts, Master Mend II is the most efficient until reach lv65 have access to Manipulation II
For Durabiltiy 35/40 crafts, Manipulation is most efficient, followed very closely by Masters Mend.

6a. Before you have Byregot's Blessing/Brow (lv50/51), you should be using Rumination to restore CP for a couple of extra touches.
6b. After you have Byregot's Blessing/Brow. Use Byregot's Blessing/Brow for a hugh quality jump.
E.g. SH2, Ingenuity II, Innovation, Basic Touch, Great Strides, Byregot's Blessing.
I use this as the finisher for macro crafting. As it prevents the possibilty of getting a Poor condition on for the Byregot's touch.

[Nicodemus_Mercy]

Another benefit to crafted gear is that it can be overmelded whereas raid drops/tomestone gear cannot. So while even given that little perk, raid gear will outstrip crafted gear, using pentalmeded crafted gear for your initial foray into savage raiding can help give you an edge.