Steel Ingots are brutal...

[Darkillumina]

The old recipe's are your friend for armorer. Basically 20ish to 50 I was using the old recipes to level. Lot's of people know about the Iron Visor/Polyns/Greaves from 35ish to 50 but few know that you can ride old reicpes from basically level 20 with armorer. Read below to find out in my handy mini-guide.

When you are 20 you can do silver squares until around 25-26. Save the squares. Squares cost 3 nuggets which are produced in 12's. Level goldsmith to 10 to make the nuggets (4 silver ore = 12 nuggets, 3 nuggets = 12 squares so 12 nuggets = 48 squares) or just buy them off the AH. They should be ridiculously cheap since they are pretty much worthless.

From 25-32ish craft silver toes using the silver squares. NPC them to make back the money you spent on the silver ore if you are too lazy to mine. (Alternatively, you can do Iron Barbut Visor but it is recipe rank 34 as opposed to the silver toes at 33. In addition you can carry mats over from the first synth which makes the silver option superior, but if you have an ass-load of iron lying around feel free.) As you get closer to the recipe rank focus on quality over production to make up for the exp loss.

At around 33/34 you can do Iron Celata Visors until 38-40. NPC these as well. All they require is 2 iron squares which are produced easily and in sets of 12. As you get closer to the recipe rank replace production with quality.

At 38-40 start making Iron Polyns. All they require is 2 iron squares and a buffalo leather strap. Buy a stack of straps on the AH or find someone to make a stack for you. Production/quality again.

From 43-50 do Iron Greaves. Same recipe as above. Production/quality again and mix it in with leves if you get bored. You get good rewards and mats from the 40+ leves, especially in Limsa.

Congratulations you have hit 50 armorer and spent less than 70k. The only issue with this method is these synths require tons of shards. For most this isn't a problem since they drop like candy but if you ate powerlevels non-stop you might be short of shards and crystals so you might have to head to the AH and buy some. (Still cheaper than the other leveling methods.)