Culinarian = Grinding?

[LuSnow]

Hello All

Just to vent out a bit!

Usually, I level up culinarian via the magic combo: GC supply/Marketboard. But now I'm with an alt who is not very rich and I thought I could for once craft it the regular way.

Today is Cornbread for daily supply to GC at my level 32. I checked the recipe: It needs 6 different ingredients, out of which 3 are to be crafted with sub-ingredients that need to go farm in different areas... And suddenly the term "grinding" took its true meaning...

Guess what? I gave up and purchased...

It seems to me that none of the other crafting disciplines are that bad?

[Frizze]

So culinarian and alchemist end up in a special place among crafting classes. They dont map super neatly to any one gathering class, and both need some "oddball" ingredients that a lot of the other crafters just dont. They both tend to use both botanist and miner ingredients, both use more fish than any other crafter, and both are at a higher likelihood to see a mob drop in their recipes(leatherworker also suffers this last one, they use a ton of skins). However, CUL and ALC end up with an advantage that the other classes miss out on - they use very few intermediary ingredients that they dont make for themselves. The other classes end up using a lot more ingredients that they cant make on their own. To compare i pulled up the recipe for Cornbread and the one for a Silver Alembic(alchemist tool crafted by an armorer).

So Cornbread was water, milk and an egg from the store(you could theoretically get the water and milk in the field, i dont know of anything that drops chicken eggs) and you combine those with olive oil(you press this from olives), cornmeal(you grind down corn), and flour(again ground from wheat). Youll get 3 each of the processed ingredients, so if you start with 3 each of the storebought stuff you can do the cooking 3 times and get 9 total bread in the end(enough to turn 3 in, use 3 for the stats, and sell 3 on the market to potentially make your money back). Thats one class requiring 6 materials and crafting 3 sub-ingredients before doing the final craft.

Ok, now look at the Alembic recipe for the Armorer. You need a Steel Plate, a Steel Rivet, an Eye of Fire, and a Silver Ingot. The eye of Fire is basically a rock that a Goldsmith polishes. A Goldsmith can also process raw silver into the Silver Ingot. Making a plate and rivets will require 3 Steel Ingots(mined iron + bomb ash - the ash being both an enemy drop and minable in the desert). Either a Blacksmith or the Armorer themself can make the ingots. But the rivets are a Blacksmith recipe while the plate is an Armorer recipe, so youll end up needing both regardless. So in the end the Armorer here uses 5 materials and 3 classes to craft 7 sub-ingredients before doing the final craft.

A high-level craft for most classes will often use ingredients from 2-4 other classes for the final combine(and if the recipe is hard enough, you might also be using food and a potion from CUL and ALC for extra crafting stats anyway). Unless youre a culinarian or an alchemist(excluding the weapons that alchemist makes - those are similar to any other high-end recipe), then you mostly find materials and put them together on your own. So it has its own way of evening out i guess is what im saying.

[Mireille_Bouquet]

Generally, if the intent is to just level up a crafting job via auto-crafting, then using the recipes that result in an "Ingredient" item are the simplest/cheapest method.
As in instead of making a complex multi-item combine, you are making a item that is then used in additional recipes, of which only need 1 or 3 items that are easy to get or are cheap to buy to make.

The benefit is you are just burning through crystals and sub ingredients that are easy or cheap to obtain and it is fast, because you just inventory stacks of the sub items and knock out 99 combines with a click.
The downside is the exp per combine is fairly low, meaning you have to do 4~10 combines in auto-mode before you get the same exp you get for one that you actually take the time to increase it's quality and use the various job skills in making.

If I remember correctly, on my main, I used https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Dark_Vinegar and https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Cream_Cheese to grind through L30~mid 40's, with the latter using the https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Sweet_Cream I saved from the push through L5 to the low teens in CUL.

Also, remember to have a food buff for the +3% EXP, plus rested and any Free Company buff for the crafting job for more EXP % if you can.
Later you can get Grand Company and Rowena EXP buff scrolls to use to effectively double EXP for a certain amount of EXP.

[LuSnow]

Oh you know, the magic combo GC supplies/marketboard works + custom deliveries once they're unlocked works wonderfully. But to me it feels a bit like cheating, so I thought that for once, with this alt, I would be brave and do it properly... Only that cornbread was maybe not the best one to start with, as it killed immediately the little motivation I had!

It's official: I'm by far too lazy for that and will return to usual method: GC supplies/market board + custom deliveries. That's' going fairly fast and without big efforts. Am a bit ashamed though...

[Frizze]

Am a bit ashamed though...

Its not my place to tell you how to feel. But if you dont want to feel ashamed then ill point out that a streamer friend of mine has been working on leveling crafts and gatherers in much the same way. She has several classes at 100 where she never even did the level 1 job quest. So you certainly arent alone.

[LuSnow]

Good to know, thank you