Random Crafting Question Thread I: HQ secret cracked!

[Tarage]

I'm at goldsmithing level 64 and I've been stuck here for about 3 years. I can't find a recipe that won't bankrupt me. I keep hoping SE will add some new ores or something that will make the next hop easier but unless I've missed one, there isn't.

Should I give up before venturing further? Should I switch over to a different craft? I have Smithing at 50. Is there a good recipe to bridge the gap? Any advice is appreciated. That 64 is burning a hole in my mind.

[dasva]

Um if lvling gold in the 60s is going to bankrupt you I recommend going cooking or just ignoring crafting. Looking on the ah most the recipes in the mid to high 60s seem to be in the 10-30k a synth range. That's actually not bad considering most high lvl stuff synth prices. And it's just going to get worst considering most crafts are heavy in the legion mats and/or vnm drops for 100+ synths. Or delve megaboss drops.

[Tarage]

I took up goldsmithing because I took up mining long ago. I don't really want to cook because I don't eat food. I was just hoping to find a point at which GS became profitable.

[Buffy]

I took up goldsmithing because I took up mining long ago. I don't really want to cook because I don't eat food. I was just hoping to find a point at which GS became profitable.

A 87 you can turn ores into beads, which will almost always result in a profit, although its not going to get you rich any time soon. Hugginn Gamberais or w/e used to be a huge profit for the -1 version, (and I haven't checked lately) but I assume they are outdated by some delve gear. And even if not, no one is paying 300m for something that will be outdated by iLvl gear almost certainly in the next couple months.

GS is profitable if you are willing to grind at it. Copper ore to copper ingots cost about 5k to make a stack and sell for 20k/stack. Silver ingots cost about 20k to make and sell for 30k. Mythril can be a profit too. If you are willing to grind the synths that the rich crafters don't want to waste their time on, you can always find a profit, regardless of craft.

If you want to run up to the AH, buy some stuff, synth it, and sell it instantly for multiple millions of gil though? You'll need to hop in a time machine to like 2005 for some scorpion harnesses or something. These days you either grind away synth after synth (my style) or takes loss after loss after loss searching for that -1 or +1 that pays for itself multiple times over.

edit: As for advice, I recommend this: Take all your crafts to 70. You need to level sub-crafts anyway. By the time you get all crafts to 70, you will have a pretty good idea 1) If you even actually like crafting & 2) Which craft you like.

As for actual 64 > 70 advice, I did platinum rings. Synth them up, then desynth them back using Kitron Macaroon. Caps at 70. You could do Hydro Patas to 67, which is the traditional route, but getting the Bone Patas ingredient can be a pain.

[Petitssk]

See the above, this is absolutely true.

The part where you can make profit begins relatively early; for instance, zinc ore to brass ingots can earn you a nice profit at extremely early levels, though the prices fluctuate, obviously. The key is looking for these seemingly minor synths that can earn you a profit.
Regardless, since you're at 64 already, you won't have to camp the AH for materials for some time, which can be a good thing.

I recommend going for Hydro patas - if you'd like to cap your subcrafts, take your bonecraft to 70 and craft the bone patas yourself to get there, you'll be able to kill two birds with one stone. After that, you can choose. You could farm moblumin ingots and convert them into sheets. By then, you'll be able to become an Artisan, allowing you to buy your apron. Using that, you should be able to reliably craft fusion bolt heads as early as 70.

I recommend stockpiling aluminium ingots as early as possible, as you'll need a lot of them. Nonetheless, the addition of fusion bolt heads has made the 70-80 range much, much easier - 70-80 used to be referred to as the "Gold Road" if I'm not mistaken. Now, it just takes some time if you don't need to plow through it in a single day.

[cdgreg]

Um if lvling gold in the 60s is going to bankrupt you I recommend going cooking or just ignoring crafting. .

This. I'd put together a basic THF/DNC gear set, even if it's just abyssea gear, THF knife, and another cheap AH dagger. From there, I'd search farmable pop items/synth materials/quest drops on the AH that sell quickly and drop from mobs you can solo. You could also use this for dynamis, turning beastly shanks into savory if you don't mind fronting the cost up front, etc.

If this is not appealing to you, find some low level mat synths like copper ingot, brass ingot, maybe some logs>lumber, etc. that will cost you like 5k to make, and sell for 15-20k. You will not make big money in crafting without being very high level, and forking over serious gil for materials which you may very well lose. My philosophy to share with others around crafting has always been: if you don't have the gil to lose, don't craft.

If your primary intent is to make gil, then there are plenty of ways outside of crafting. On the flip side, if you enjoy crafting, do it without the intent to make gil, but rather to enjoy a hobby.

[dasva]

I don't really want to cook because I don't eat food. I was just hoping to find a point at which GS became profitable.

Not sure why not eating food would stop you from cooking when you are trying to make a profit... if you are trying to make a profit from lvling a craft well you either plug away at the high stuff hoping for HQs and lack of bad luck and spending litterally hundreds of millions (and given your balking at 20k I'm guessing that's not an option) or slowly plugging away on lower stuff that higher crafters just don't feel like doing, or doing cooking since well most people do continually eat food and stuff is going for bananas right now

[Damane]

anyone know where you can farm/harves Akaso?

[Byrthnoth]

I either harvested or logged some in Mog Gardens once.

[solkanar]

anyone know where you can farm/harves Akaso?

I know it's been confirmed harvesting in Yorcia though I'm 0/a lot with critical slice and boots. Curious if you can get it Dho too which i might try later. And also as said rarely from Mog garden.

[Damane]

I know it's been confirmed harvesting in Yorcia though I'm 0/a lot with critical slice and boots. Curious if you can get it Dho too which i might try later. And also as said rarely from Mog garden.

did 3 lair reives and got one. i guess reives is the way to if want them alot?

[Shazam]

did 3 lair reives and got one. i guess reives is the way to if want them alot?

I was about 10% on Akaso while harvesting in Yorcia.

1/10.

Cupper Sneak/Invis is how to do HELM.
On the account I do really stupid shit on, I put on Maintenance Flag (Not Mode), I Pos like 10 Yalm under the ground, and zoom around the map, under the map, to all the harvesting spots, and I harvest from underground too.

Nobody ever sees me lol.

[Rehn]

For zenith pumps +1, has anyone gotten cure potency + cure spellcasting time? I'm about 100 tatters into this and I'm almost convinced you can't get both at once.

[dasva]

For zenith pumps +1, has anyone gotten cure potency + cure spellcasting time? I'm about 100 tatters into this and I'm almost convinced you can't get both at once.

Yes. And none of the augments work like that. Any augment you can get you can get with something else. But you are going for 2 of the common augments which can only happen on HQ3... which is only about 1/10-20 to begin with. And even then it can still pick a random for the 2nd so probably around half the time you get HQ3 you will get 2 commons. And then the odds of getting the 2 out of 4 you want when you actually get 2 commons would be about 1/6. So overall the odds of getting 2 specific common augments is about decently under 1%

[Rehn]

Well at least there's still a glimmer of hope for me to get both. On the bright side, found out spellcasting time goes up to 8 instead of the previously noted 7 on wiki, so changing that.

[Buffy]

Anyone doing anything brilliant about the cluster/crystal supply? Outside of farming elementals, the cluster supply on the AH BLOWS ASS.

Gardening? Anything anyone?

[Kyreth]

Anyone doing anything brilliant about the cluster/crystal supply? Outside of farming elementals, the cluster supply on the AH BLOWS ASS.

Gardening? Anything anyone?

Elementals are the only real way to get a pile of crystals at a reasonable rate. You can garden them, but that's random. You can occasionally dig them, but same.

Sky or bust.

[|Heretic|]

Silly question - how does one go about figuring out what skill level a particular synth caps at? I vaguely know it has something to do with a guild NPC maybe mentioning the item in question, but not sure on much more than that.

I'm specifically trying to figure out what the goldsmithing cap on Sharur is. BGWiki has this as 109-114, how is that conclusion reached?

Lastly, if this NPC doesn't tell you what you want to hear, what conclusion can be drawn? Is that where the 109-114 numbers come from?

Thanks for any input/clarification.

[dasva]

nq npc tells you recipes that are within 1-4of your base lvl hq npc tells you 5-10 iirc. Also you can't attempt synths that are more than 15 lvls your current skill lvl so you can always engage a mob from far away and attempt. If you are within 15 it will fail and you lose nothing if you can't it will say you can't

[|Heretic|]

If I have this right, say the cap for this item was 120 and I was level 104. If I tried to synth while engaged, I would get message saying I can't. Once I leveled up to 105 and tried again, I get a different message than before which will fail because I'm currently engaged and can verify the cap for the item is 120?

Too bad I'm already less 15 levels away from the item I'm trying to figure out :/ is the engaged method the ideal method to figuring out the cap? Receiving a range of levels from the npcs certainly doesn't sound ideal.

Similarly, can I verify the item's cap once I'm over it in the form of the NPCs no longer telling me the recipe?

Apologies if this is all kind of derp common knowledge, shows how much I bother reading what NPCs say. Thanks!