New player crafting mats inventory woes.

[BH5432]

Hey all. Now before to ask. Yes I have one retainer and my saddle bags. What I want to know. Is when crafting. Do I have to have the mats on my character? Or can they be on a retainer/in saddle bags.

[StouterTaru]

Yes, they have to be in inventory.

Why only 1 retainer? You can hire two when you're far enough in the MSQ to hire one.

[Raldo]

When it comes to low-level materials, there are indeed a lot of them, but for many of them you can probably just sell them to an NPC vendor and re-buy them from the Market Board later if/when you ever find that you need them. There are a few pieces of advice that I would give to help you figure out what's worth holding onto and what isn't.

1) Many monster drops are used for maaaaaaaaaaybe a handful of crafts. Crab shells and various fangs are notorious for wasting space. If you look at the Market Board, you'll often see that these items are being sold for chump change. Just junk those items to save space, and buy (or farm) a few up if/when you ever need them.

2) You may find that some items are just sold by vendors. For example, look at a Bat Fang. Not only is it not used for very many things, you can actually just buy them from an NPC vendor. If you look at an item's description, you'll see a line that says "Shop Selling Price". If that has a number next to it, then somewhere there's a vendor that just sells that item. Those items certainly aren't worth wasting precious inventory slots on.

3) Generally speaking, it isn't necessary to hang onto high-quality materials. You can right-click these materials and select "Lower Quality" so that they stack with your normal-quality materials.

4) Cooking ingredients. Low-level cooking ingredients generally aren't worth holding onto. Each item is usually only used in a handful of synths, and on top of that, cooking takes an unnaturally large variety of ingredients, so CUL can often be a hassle. Unless you know what you need, it's probably not worth holding onto those meats.

5) Fish. If you're fishing, lots of fish have literally no use whatsoever; not even for cooking.


Random example of items I would never hold onto and why:
- Green Megalocrab Shell : Monster drop. Used in a whopping 3 synths, and is probably dirt cheap on the Market Board.
- Coeurl Meat : Monster drop. Used in ONE cooking synth. Also, probably dirt cheap on the Market Board.
- Mole Meat : Monster drop. Used in ONE cooking synth. Also, sold by an NPC for 31 gil.
- Goobbue Fang : Used in ONE alchemy synch, and it's a synth that nobody cares about (Potion of Vitality). Probably dirt cheap on the Market Board.
- Ice Rock : Mining. Only used to craft one thing, which in turn is only used to craft 3 things. Not worth holding onto, since you can go get more at any time.
- Alpine Parsnip : Botany. Used to craft 3 only different CUL recipes. Also, an NPC sells it for 19g.
- Ala Mhigan Fighting Fish : Fishing. This fish has literally no function for crafting.

[Urthdigger]

Try and get in the habit of only keeping items you'll use in the near future. If you keep your crafts equally leveled you'll find certain level ranges have tiers of ingredients, like one range uses oak, another uses walnut, etc. Sell the stuff that's not used for your range, and if you need some later you can always get more then, or even buy it.

[armandojc3]

Experts in crafting: Do you guys recommend any particular city hub or similar where the stores offer the most usable items to level?.

[Hasrat]

If you're in an FC, (maybe in apartments, idk?), housing Materials providers or w/e sell a pretty wide range.

[HexTechBomber]

Experts in crafting: Do you guys recommend any particular city hub or similar where the stores offer the most usable items to level?.

The three main starting city states all sell the same stuff for early levels on a few things. Some things you'll have to buy of the marketboard or gather through Botanist, Miner or Fisher (depending on what your leveling for a crafter). I always suggest to keep on you what you are planning to craft, and keep others on your retainer. Also as someone mentioned, hire a 2nd retainer, you get two free retainers to start with, which is freaking awesome.

Once you get to a certain level (and place in the story) of course other materials are available in other big cities you visit. There may be some bought at off site spots outside of the cities near aetherytes, but it's also pretty easy to just google what you're looking for and who sells it and where they are at.

https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Main_Page
I use the Gamer Escape site to find everything I'm looking for that I can't recall or remember where to get it.

But I do really REALLY suggest leveling AT LEAST miner and botanist with crafters, it'll make it so much easier to just grab the mats yourself.

[Urthdigger]

Experts in crafting: Do you guys recommend any particular city hub or similar where the stores offer the most usable items to level?.

Once you're past 15, you don't really buy mats for the most part. Also while there are some materials some towns have that others do not, none of them are "better" than others. Make a shopping list and either go out and gather them or use the market board. I highly recommend using ffxivteamcraft.com, as it has an easy way to make and keep a list of ingredients and even shows where you can gather or buy them.

[Niwashi]

Generally speaking, it isn't necessary to hang onto high-quality materials. You can right-click these materials and select "Lower Quality" so that they stack with your normal-quality materials.

This eventually becomes true once you're way above the level the material is primarily used in. Until then, you definitely want to keep any high quality materials you can get, but can get rid of a lot of the low quality ones if they're easy to get again when needed.

Once you are far enough past the material's main level to no longer care about quality, I'd recommend selling the HQ mats rather than lowering their quality. HQ mats will usually sell for far more, sometimes 100 times or more what their NQ versions do, (though there's a few exceptions where there's hardly any difference with materials that drop way too often for the demand).

[Niwashi]

Experts in crafting: Do you guys recommend any particular city hub or similar where the stores offer the most usable items to level?.

Up to roughly level 15 or so:
The supplier at the relevant class's guild hall has everything you need, so it depends on which craft you're leveling at the moment. If you or your FC has a house, there's a vendor available to place there that combines the convenience of assembling mats for all eight classes together in one place with a selection that's almost (not quite) as extensive as all those suppliers combined. There are also vendors in the market area of each main city that have the lowest tier of materials for all eight crafts, but their selection (the same in each city) is more limited than the housing vendor or guild suppliers.

Past level 15:
In addition to new higher level materials, you'll also continue using materials from lower levels, and that keeps the vendors listed above relevant for a long time. For the higher level mats, most aren't available from NPCs, and you'll either have to gather them yourself or buy them off the marketboard from someone who did. A few of the higher level materials are available from beast tribe vendors, but only once you gain enough reputation with them. (And on the subject of beast tribes, the Ixal, Moogle, Namazu quests are a good way to level DoH without needing regular mats, since you get their materials as quest items.)