The crafting & gathering thread.

[cassiraa]

The best leveling path I found was to find what level you can reliably HQ at, and then do a triple leve of that level. Even if the leve is at 10 levels below you, you're getting more exp than NQing equal-level stuff.

[Ksandra]

You absolutely can. When I hit the Miner quest requiring 99 bone chips I just walked to the vendor and bought them.

And for crafting I've been making a killing selling HQs of the 45 carpenter quest, and I doubt people would be buying those to wear.

my mistake then! idk what I did that made them not take it. Maybe had hq and needed nq or vise versa.

[Niiro]

Would be vise versa, you can turn in HQ items when NQs are requested the game just gives you a prompt to make sure you know.

[Spider-Dan]

By triple I mean you can complete the leve 3 times in 1 allowance.

What do you mean by "complete the leve 3 times in 1 allowance"? It doesn't use up an allowance until the third time you get it?

[Raldo]

What do you mean by "complete the leve 3 times in 1 allowance"?

When you turn in the three items, the client is often like "Hey man, would you be willing to turn in three more [item]s on the down-low, so we don't have the pay the adventurer's guild?" If you select yes, you can turn in three more items (at your leisure -- it doesn't have to be immediate; it's basically like resetting the leve). This happens twice, for a grand total of 3 full leve turn-ins. Each turn-in grants you the full exp+gil reward.

Since you only retrieved the leve from the counter once, you only use up one leve credit.

[Deadgye]

Doesn't that mean you need to turn in 3HQ each time? And then wouldn't the exp per HQ item be pretty horrible if you don't care about the number of leves you're using?

[Raldo]

Doesn't that mean you need to turn in 3HQ each time? And then wouldn't the exp per HQ item be pretty horrible if you don't care about the number of leves you're using?

1) No, they don't care whether you turn in HQ or not. The reward is boosted if you turn in HQ, of course, but it's not a requirement.

2) If you don't care about the number of leves that you're using, then you can use whatever leves you want. The whole point of the system is to avoid using leve credits.

To give an example...

I did the Lv40 (or 45?) BSM quest leve in Limsa that asked for three Cobalt Pliers (please don't hate me; this was before I realized that my 1.0 Shark Oil was now expensive).

Turn in #1: 3x HQ Pliers
Reward: XP + Gil reward specified on the leve, plus a bonus 200% added to that.

Would you like to continue turning in items? Yes, yes I would.

Turn in #2: 1x HQ Pliers, 2x NQ Pliers
Reward: XP + Gil reward specified on the leve, plus a bonus 66% added to that.

Would you like to continue turning in items? Yes, yes I would.

Turn in #3: 2x HQ Pliers, 1x NQ Pliers
Reward: XP + Gil reward specified on the leve, plus a bonus 133% added to that.

Thank you, leve complete.

-----------------------------------------------------------

After doing that a few times, it dawned on me that I should be doing the OTHER in-town leve, because I don't give a shit how many leves I use (also because Shark Oil is expensive), then proceeded to get exp faster because the other leve only asked for one item (yet had a similar exp reward). I just had to trek to and from the leve counter more times.

I hope that explains everything.

[Gokulo]

Doesn't that mean you need to turn in 3HQ each time? And then wouldn't the exp per HQ item be pretty horrible if you don't care about the number of leves you're using?

You can turn 1HQ, 2NQ or whatever combination you want. Of course 3HQ is best. The 3xturn-in leve are great most of the time, but not always. To use a comparison with the lv30 Carpenter Leve from you - Walnut Macublabla sword. It's @70k (base reward around 23k) exp for 1HQ. Then there's a lv35 Leve that wants 3 of those and the base reward is something like 13k so even with HQ it's not getting close to the lv30 Leve, so it doesn't seem worth it. But you don't always have such good alternatives. Plus, yeah, one of their pros is saving allowances.

[Seravi Edalborez]

Let's take these GSM45 leves as an example

Light in the Darkness - 39087 xp, 872 gil
Field, Saint Coinach's Find (Mor Dhona), triple
3 Amber Choker

Sweet Charity - 34552 xp, 508 gil
Field, Saint Coinach's Find (Mor Dhona)
1 Amber Ring

And let's go ahead and round those off to 40k and 35k exp, respectively.

If I turn do a HQ turn-in with the former, I get (40k x 3 = 120k) exp. So if it's all HQ that's 360k exp for 1 leve.

If I turn in the latter HQ, I get 105k exp.

Granted the former uses 9x as many mats in comparison, but mats aren't limited. Leves are.

[Spider-Dan]

So here's the real question...

Setting leve availability and costs aside, which is more exp/hr: crafting your own HQs and turning them in, or buying NQs on AH and turning them in?

[Ratatapa]

How do you rotate your skills for HQ?

I tried Inner Quiet then Manipulation and thenspam the lv 15 Cul skill until my Durability is low then use careful syntheys II and hope ...

[Raldo]

How you HQ is entirely based on preference, available cross-class skills, and amount of CP.

Experiment and see what works best for you. If that's not good enough for you, there are a few rotation suggestions scattered throughout this thread.

[Raineer]

How you HQ is entirely based on preference, available cross-class skills, and amount of CP.

Experiment and see what works best for you. If that's not good enough for you, there are a few rotation suggestions scattered throughout this thread.

This is the reason everyone (interested in crafting) should get every craft to 15. I played for like a week in 1.0, so this is all basically net new to me.

Leveling everything to 15, which barely involves leaving the guild rooms at all:
- Unlocks all the 15 abilities
- Teaches you what all those random-looking drops are from most mob families
- Helps you get an intuition for what types of gear come from what craft, and how each craft complements each other
- Helps you understand how the progress/control/condition crafting system works, and what abilities fit your style best

Begin with Weaving and Leather, and you can make updated crafting gear whenever you like. There's accessories too from gold once you get into the teens.

It takes a trivial amount of gil to start, so I really recommend people go through this exercise on a few (all) crafts and learn for themselves. Once you get everything to 15, you'll already see where money comes from in the game (at least for low-level gear).

[Fereydoon]

How would you rank the level 50 abilities? Brygot's/Comfort Zone > Careful II > All?

[Seravi Edalborez]

Byregot's > Comfort Zone/Careful II > Ingenuity II > Reclaim* >> Waste Not II >>> Innovation/Piece by Piece

The last 2 are nearly pointless. Ingenuity does basically the same thing Innovation will do for you for more steps, and Piece is just awful. It's difficult to get the full mileage out of Waste Not II as mentioned elsewhere.

My reasoning for Reclaim is that while it's not essential by any means, I'd like to have it for synths where the RNG just goes "fuck you" and makes you fail every single Steady Hand + Hasty Touch and you don't want to just waste the mats on a NQ product.

[Fereydoon]

I didn't think Ingenuity I was potent enough to overpower Innovation like that, sad.

Currently 40 GSM, current route is open with Inner Quiet > TotT if applicable whenever I can > Steady Hand > Spam Hasty Touch > Master's Mend II or Manipulation, depending on synth, Manipulation for 40's, MMII for 80s > Rumination at the end to hopefully get enough CP to MMI or Manipulation again to finish the synth, otherwise throw in progresses throughout the synth. Where can I be improving?

Using my highest touch on Rainbows obviously.

[Spider-Dan]

Wait, how does Ingenuity duplicate Innovation?

For purposes of quality, Ingenuity and Ingenuity II do the same thing; there is a penalty for synths above your level, but no bonus for synths below your level.
50* is equivalent to LV55 recipe, or 25% quality penalty.
Innovation is control+50%.

I realize that control and quality are not 1:1, but based on the formula from earlier:

"Base Quality Gain" = 0.36 * (Control) + 34

...it looks like on 50* and below, Innovation should be superior.

[Seravi Edalborez]

It's more that I feel Ingenuity/II can be used to good effect on quality and progress (for 50* and ** obviously), where Innovation only does for quality and for less steps. I'll admit I was speaking in pretty broad strokes but I haven't ever thought "boy I wish I popped Innovation".

[Kaelan?]

Byregot's > Comfort Zone/Careful II > Ingenuity II > Reclaim* >> Waste Not II >>> Innovation/Piece by Piece

A 50% bonus on top of Inner Quiet as bad as piece by piece?

nigga you crazy

Great Strides+Innovation+Byregot's is the shit

Byregot's > Innovation/Careful II/Ingenuity II >Comfort Zone > Reclaim > Waste Not II / Piece by Piece

[Maaglin]

So here's the real question...

Setting leve availability and costs aside, which is more exp/hr: crafting your own HQs and turning them in, or buying NQs on AH and turning them in?

With the conditions you set, buying HQ of the AH would be best exp/hr.

A general comment, the 3x leve turn ins are case by case for me. If the item requires a bunch of pre-synths, usually I'll just do the 1x turn in since I can pound it out much faster. I'll "sacrifice" a few leves to get a better xp/hr return.
Also, I just get tired of this crafting system after about an hour, I find it very tedious, so I gotta go do something else around that time.

The only time I ever spend a lot of time crafting is after a long gathering run, using up relevant mats with my naga macro.