Woodwork skilling question, also breaksynthing

[ubermonkey]

I've just finished the ancient lumber stage of woodworking (72), and I'm reviewing my options for a skillup synth now.

The options seem to be: Commode; sells at a loss. Works out (I think) as around 5k loss a synth. Synth/desynth clothespole: Assuming I get the 24 synths out of every stack of materials, works out as around a 3k loss/synth, however I don't keep gil turning around doing this, its a straight gil out loss, plus it seems like a bigger loss because of tremendous numbers of breaks (I know it isn't, but that horrible gut feeling is hard to shift). My third option is to suck it up to 74 and start synthing (breaksynthing?) scimitar cactus, which cap higher, and have a lvl 20 smithing subcraft. Overall, straight synthing these is a bigger loss than either of the above.

My questions are thus:

1) Am I likely to realistically be able to breaksynth cactus with lvl 5 smithing, or am I just going to skill smithing since its such a low subcraft? (I'm not really sure how breaksynthing works, other than being 15 under cap).

2) Do veteran woodworkers have a better synth to reccomend or is this a case of just sucking it up and eating the losses?

Thanks.

[Darkslitter]

Look into http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/Cabinet If you have any gp gear you shouldn't break too much with adv. imagery. I even made a decent profit from them by hqing my own lumber from windy airship guy. They sell pretty quickly since they are great for storage.

[ubermonkey]

Thanks. I looked at these and ruled them out for some reason. Possibly because I didn't realise you could buy the lumber from a non guild NPC :D

[Theraven]

In response to your breaksynthing question, you won't be getting any smithing skillups because the only time you skill up on a break is when you're within 5 levels of the cap and you're going to break every time at 15 levels below the cap. I guess it's possible you could have a successfull synth but out of the hundreds of break synths I did levelling Goldsmithing I never had a single successful synth. The bad part about breaksynthing is it's a straight money loss with no product to at least npc for some gil back, but the good thing is you don't lose all the materials so sometimes it's a lot cheaper to breaksynth rather than make something for skill that sells for a huge loss or doesnt sell at all.

[akarikamigishi]

In response to your breaksynthing question, you won't be getting any smithing skillups because the only time you skill up on a break is when you're within 5 levels of the cap and you're going to break every time at 15 levels below the cap.

Wait what? Doesn't this completely defeat the idea of break synthing? There's a reason people do arrows for 10 levels in wood... (and I'm sure in other crafts too but wood's my only 100 and I don't really remember the other crafts so well)

[Majestic]

In response to your breaksynthing question, you won't be getting any smithing skillups because the only time you skill up on a break is when you're within 5 levels of the cap and you're going to break every time at 15 levels below the cap.

Wait what? Doesn't this completely defeat the idea of break synthing? There's a reason people do arrows for 10 levels in wood... (and I'm sure in other crafts too but wood's my only 100 and I don't really remember the other crafts so well)

No. The idea of break synthing is that you are leveling your main craft while using an underleveled subcraft (thereby making break synthing only possible with a item with a subcraft requirement). Because you are so far away from the cap with your subcraft, you will break every time but because you will be within 5 levels of the synth's main craft requirement, you can still get skillups that way. The other reasons for break synthing some items are listed in posts above.

[Theraven]

In response to your breaksynthing question, you won't be getting any smithing skillups because the only time you skill up on a break is when you're within 5 levels of the cap and you're going to break every time at 15 levels below the cap.

Wait what? Doesn't this completely defeat the idea of break synthing? There's a reason people do arrows for 10 levels in wood... (and I'm sure in other crafts too but wood's my only 100 and I don't really remember the other crafts so well)

Maybe you didn't understand what I was trying to say. Breaksynthing requires that you are at most 5 levels below the synth cap for your main skill and at most 15 levels below the cap for the sub craft. As an example, Gold Sabatons are Goldsmithing cap 74, Alchemy subskill cap 54. So you would want to be at least level 69 goldsmithing and somewhere between level 39 and 54 Alchemy skill. Though, the closer you are to the alchemy cap the more likely you are to actually have a successful synth and that would defeat the purpose of break synthing. You WILL skill your main craft because you are within 5 levels of the cap but you will NOT skill your subcraft because you will be breaking every synth and you can't get skill on breaks if you're more than 5 levels below the cap. The point of breaksynthing is that you won't lose all the materials every time so the monetary value of the materials you lose per synth will be lower than if you had synthed something successfully using those materials and had to npc or toss them for almost total loss.

[Senji]

I did Cabinets to 81. Made money.

72 + 2 gear + 3 adv support = 77, watch what day it is for a bit.