One More Time?, Subcrafting advice from the Smiths

Heya folks, sheesh, not much action on the boards lately huh...

Nope, nothing much doing on my end. Found a gap in the red cape +1 market so filled that and got maybe 5 good sales in before someone else noticed and thennnn the crowd showed up and presto, instant undercutting and 7 capes for sale today. Made a devotee's mitts +1 but still waiting for it to sell... ><

I really love that FFXIAH.com cuz I can check my sales from home. What I DON'T like is you can easily track any item or any other *crafter's sales* and instantly see what they're doing. Not that this should affect what you sell, but combing the market looking for those niches to sell into is getting harder cuz ppl can simply track YOU and not the individual markets and see what your research has dug up. Ah well, so it goes...we just need to keep moving, staying ahead of the pack eh?

Noticed that war berets have a WONDerful market. The NQs sell to Weavers to make into elite berets and sell almost as soon as the crafter posts it up. One of the few NQs to turn a profit! I seriously considered skilling up one of my mules as a Leathercrafter for just this one item. Leathercrafters, do you still make these for profit?

Anyway, to make a long story short, </em shakes head> I need to have my head examined but am seriously considering skilling up a mule now. >< Boy, to even consider taking another craft up to 100? Corwen, are you listening? ;-)

So what craft to do? I always ask my son what players use when I find a potential niche item cuz he actually plays the game and knows what's useful but more importantly, what's not. If no one makes the item, more times than not it's because the item is NOT useful and won't sell...useful information beFORE making an item. Anyway, I asked him what crafting skill would give him the most useful item at this point and Smithing was the answer. Leathercrafting would be directly useful for my Weaving skills, but he thought a signed Hauberk +1 would be nice so...

Bought stacks of fire crys and camped the Smithing guild and had a great time yesterday(!) It's been quite a while since I've seen a skillup of any kind roll up the screen so it really was good to get back into the saddle again. 0.2s x 3 in a row <woot!> and L2-> L10 in just a few hours.

Smiths, I do need some advice on what subcrafts you find useful since I started with my mule in Bastok, but am thinking Wood and Leather would be more useful than GS and Alchem in general so considering restarting on my mule in Sandy before I get too far. Comments?

And as always, Happy Crafting! M

Right there with you. I must have been crazy when I decided to take a mule to 100. On gold, no less!

"I've done leather to 100, now I want something more challenging. I know! Gold!"

I've been kicking myself ever since. So many millions spent, and only gold 70! Arg! Each one level of gold is nearly as hard (not to mention expensive!) as leather 90-100.

On the other hand, while it's frustrating as heck, the sense of accomplishment is really nice. Know that struggle for each .1 when you're 90+ in some craft? How you have to save so you can do a few synths at once? Well, you can get that starting at gold ~65!

But when it comes down to it, what else would I be doing in-game now? I hate XPing, and after three years of farming that's gotten kind of boring, too. I had more money than I knew what to do with before I started gold...

So, in closing: I hope you get all of the joy and none of the frustration that I've gotten!

My smithing is only 60 on Thistle, but leather and wood seem like reasonable subcrafts to me.

what you said about staying ahead of the competition is absolutely correct. I never go on big binges of crafting now because I know even if I can churn out 3 or 5 HQs, the market will crash as I'm trying to sell them all off. Better to make fewer (but more varied) HQs and sell whatever's hot *in the moment*.

deflated prices and desperate crafters (and probably the advent of FFXIAH.com) have made all markets highly unstable. It seems like everything is teetering on the edge, just waiting for an extra 2 or 3 items to be posted, and down goes the price.

just keep a careful eye on the things you're stocking and selling. If it looks like someone else has joined the party, it's probably already time for you to dump and flee.

Wood and leather are pretty much the 2 best subcrafts for skilling up pre-veteran. Gold and Alchemy sub become useful around veteran rank. Cloth sub is necessary for haubergeons/hauberks when you get to the point of synthing them for profit.

As far as which craft to do, I can't really recommend a craft to do, but if you were on Midgard I would say steer clear of goldsmithing, and not for the sake of my own profiting . Nowadays the profit synths are so bad in general the expense of skilling it up isn't worth the rewards. I'm not sure what the state of goldsmithing is on your server so this might not necessarily apply to you. All the other crafts I say are still reasonably good (on midgard at least).

Good luck with your new craft!

Heya folks, and thank you for your input! Smithing it is, and skilling up my Sandy mule Drizt (yah, just like the ranger) and having a great time! Always love hitting that skillup and just went from L6 -> L7 in 6 synths. Man, you think that wasn't a rush? Woot! 0.2, 0.2, 0.2, 0.2, break, 0.2...

Went 1/7 after I hit L2 trying to make simple bronze sheets last night and knew that wasn't right. Had loaded up Drizt's MH with tons of cheap chests when I was skillup up Wood many moons ago and didn't pay that any mind cuz I got "Moghancement: Fishing." Welllll, I added up my furniture and came up with 84 units of water elemental strength so figure that might have something to do with my troubles. Took me 3 hours of rearranging all my stuff stored on Drizt as well as my other mules and rebalancing all MH furniture earlier today and now back on course.

Dunno how long my interest in doing this is gonna last but it's cheap enough at this level to be just fun! Will stay in touch!

Happy Crafting folks! M

heyyy mordred you should make a char on midgard =P
i know this is unrelated but i went to an anime convention the other day and there was a guy dressed up in a clothcrafting apron. Turns out he's this guy named Zealboy i think on Diablos and i took a picture with him, he got in crafting position and everything it was funny, he's 99 and says he doesn't want to get to 100 because of the 200k loss per synth haha. figures. well just thought i'd share that with you haha. good luck on your smithing mordred! it should be fun and make a char on midgard! haha see ya

One reason I have 2 Jeuno mules is for precisely this reason. While people can track those mules' sales, they cannot trace it to me unless they know that we are one and the same. I've even gone so far as to move other mules to Jeuno for a short time to break up the names on the history.

Thanks for the info. I'll have to look into making some of these. I've been slacking off on the gil making lately as I don't have a definite goal that pushes me forward. Making gil just for the sake of making gil doesn't work for me. However, if I'm making gil to buy a specific item then I can easily stay motivated at least long enough to reach that goal (assuming it's something not 10M+).

I've often wondered about skilling up a mule. I'd really like to sit down with the knowledge I have now and try to figure out an exact route with close to exact numbers of ingredients (crystals too!) and see if I could stick to a planned out route of taking a craft to 60 (at least), if not to 100. Since I don't have the experience of going to 100 yet I'd probably not go quite that far, but it's something I'd like to look into.

I have had stretches where I lvl a single craft 20+ lvls a day. My best to date was Goldsmithing from 3-47 in a single day.

I'd think Gold, Leather, and Wood would be the top three. As such you could easily get all 3 (and Smithing) lvl'd in San d'Oria as all 4 have guilds there.

---

Mordred
Every time I see your lvls and hear about yet another craft being capped out or other GP items obtained it makes me want to get back to crafting. Knowing there is another crafter on Caitsith who I admire and respect makes me want to get back hard and heavy into crafting again. Unfortunately, my play style is much more varied as I do a lot of events and lvl'ing of jobs too. At the very least thanks for giving me a goal to shoot for and someone to BS with every now and again on the server.

Heya Ikonic, and good to hear from ya! Maybe I can hit you up to make me a few War berets if this turns out to be a good potential seller for you...if you have the time of course...I'll provide all materials naturally(!) ^ ^

What's interesting about skilling up a mule is now I get to draw upon all my "experience" crafting so HOPEfully this will be a lot more efficient. I've done all the crafts before but now I get to do it again and maybe cross craft whenever I see an opportunity.

There are obvious disadvantages to cross-crafting since you have to bank so many different kinds of materials, BUT, there are advantages too.

The most obvious is I really don't care when a guild closes now. I can always skill-up another craft with an open Guild, or switch to another craft if my skillups stall for whatever reason.

Since my mule is in Sandy, am doing Smithing as primary but also taking Wood and Leather up at the same time. I'm also doing Cloth (heh) since I know a little about doing that and have just shipped myself the necessary materials. Earth, Wind, and Fire crystals are down to 1-2k a stack now so depending on what crystals I get a bargain on, I'll just do that craft.

I got stuck at ClothL10 yesterday since I can't get to the Windy Weaver's Guild to take my test, but will try to get an escort to run to Jeuno (my mule is a L13 War) to get an airship pass.

Drizt, L13 War
Smithing 19.2
Wood 20.1
Cloth10
Leather6

Yesh, I am definitely having fun! Especially seeing all those glorious 0.1s of Clothcrafting skillups coming fast and furious, even tho this is at <L10!

And as always, Happy Crafting! M

I sound like a broken record, but why not drop some gil on a few stacks each of silent oils and prism powders and make your way yourself? The expense is dwarfed by the gil you'll be spending on an airship pass.

LOL and thanks Odango, but the escort service should be free. I'll be using the prism powders and silent oils but having my son run interference (since his jobs benefit directly from my crafting) greatly increases my odds of surviving the trip uneventfully.

I really wanted those GS shades way back when so had to run to Bastok to use the GS guild there. I remember only too well running thru the Dunes and picking up a gob (or worse) on my tail. I still get anxiety attacks just recalling getting whacked from behind as I ran for the zone, praying I'd get there before I died.

Just to remind myself not to ever ever get in harm's way (given the choice), tried to get to Windy for more signing crystals just last month so took the boat from Al Zahbi to Mhaura. No chocos there so was running thru Buburimu and picked up a gob. Drat...luckily was able to Warp back to Al Zhabi and tried again but this time using the free Taru...who warped me right next to a Dancing Weapon in Qufim which immediately came after me. I was lucky it missed just when I got Warp off or I would've died. So that was more excitement than I wanted in a looong time eh?

So yes, I can do this on my own. But no, not by myself at L13 TYVM if I have any other good choices. Hmmm, actually, now that you mention it, I just might try to solo the trip just for fun...will let you know!

I want to STAY a Happy Crafter (as in not dying!) M

This post has been edited by Mordred on Feb 21 2007, 11:36 AM

it isn't too bad. If memory serves, it took me just over a stack each of powders and oils from Windurst to Jeuno on a lv1 mule.

what was really fun was running from Windurst to Bastok with 2 other lv10ish friends and dodging EVERYTHING since we had no idea yet what aggroed. That took some time.

This post has been edited by Odango on Feb 21 2007, 06:10 PM

Sandy to Jeuno is an easy run w/o any oils/powders or an escort. I've ran it many times now with a lvl 1 character (even particpated in a race to win myself 140K) and had very little problems. Key is to know what aggros what (Orcs-sight, Wights-HP/sound, Gobs/Tigers-sight, and so on) and know how to lose aggro (using trees, rocks, other mobs, and other obsticals) so that you can make it safely. I've lost as many as 4 aggro'd mobs at a time due to knowing how to slow them down while I was able to just keep running. Ultimately, this is great practice for losing mobs when doing such things as pulling or getting to camp with aggro or when you run out of oils/powders.

one time i ran from sandoria to bastok on a level 3 mule, to switch allegience for black chocobo fletchings haha. i didn't have any powders or oils or spells though, not too bad, huh?
sneaky Perrytaru... hehehe

Heya folks, and much obliged for all the encouragement and suggestions! I should have my head examined but I'm seriously considering trying to make that Sandy -> Jeuno run solo now, even tho I know that Murphy's law will apply. <Corollary to the crafting laws in another current thread>

BTW, the Crafting Laws are a variation of Murphy's Laws. Soooo, here's my 2 cents on how those Murphy's Laws apply to me and mobs...which is another reason why I craft. </em whisper> "It's safer than XP'ing..."

Law 1: when taking on a mob, checking to see how my level compares to its will always be misleading. EPs will fight harder than that. Evens are never that.

Law 2: when deciding to take on a mob, the one time I forget to scan the perimeter and NOT check for other threats will be the one time they will be out there and I will find out the hard way that there are 1 or more linking mobs of the same variety that will be more than happy to come and pound on my sorry butt.

Law 3: I am *seriously* directionally challenged in RL. This tendency most assuredly carries over into FF. Thus, when running thru any area unfamiliar to me, I will always a) turn the wrong way and get lost, b ) not only will I get lost, I will get lost in the most hostile area possible, c) I will not realize I'm lost until too late. While checking my map and deciding which way to go, a mob will come up and aggro me and then call all of its friends, d) while running for my life trailing mobs, I will always run in the direction that will take me directly in front of a more hostile mob who will then join the party, e) while being pursued and trying to read my map, I will invariably run into a large object such as a tree or the side of a mountain giving the mobs a chance to catch up to me...well anyway, you get the idea! ><

So you wonder why I'm reluctant to make this run eh? More on this later!

As always, I'm much Happier Crafting than I am doing anything else! M

Heya folks, guess I'm not gonna find out how I'd do solo'ing that Sandy -> Jeuno run. at least not yet. My son had a 40 minute window where he wasn't doing much last night so he suggested we make that run. He just went as RDM and I got Sneak'd and Invis'd and tried not to run into any tigers along the way...so Drizt has his airship pass!

It was good to get back to my Weaving skilling up! I just love seeing "Drizt's clothcrafting skill increases by 0.1" scrolling up the screen! I'm even getting a few 0.2s! Heh heh L10 -> L14.4 as of this morning! ^ ^

Amazing how much crystal prices have dropped. A combination of much more supply and not-that-much demand I'd guess. Wind crys are down to 500-800k a stack, Fires are 1-2k, Lightning 1.5-2k, and Earths have been steady at 800-1k for months. So depending on what type of crystals I find for cheap, will level that craft since I can choose from 4 now: Smithing, Wood, Cloth...and Leather once I get around to it.

Keep crafting folks, and you'll stay Happy! M