Which Craft?

I really wanna get started with crafting. Really dont know too much about it ther than what I have read on forums and guides. I know this is going to seem, stupid... but which is the easy to start off with? At the moment, I have 8 cooking (recruit), 3 cloth, and 2 alchemy. So, I know I have a really long way to go before I can see some results, but any ideas/suggestions would be greatly appreicated. Thanks! <^.^>

Well, first question: How much gil do you have? (not exact number.)
First thing crafts narrow down to is ones that are cheap and ones that are stupid costy, but huge profit in the end.

Cooking, in my oh so humble opinion, is one of the easiest crafts to get into. Almost everything is vendor gotten (protip: have mules in the three major cities, and get them max fame!) and the outlay is relatively cheap compared to other crafts. There's very few synths that are "losers" as far as income, and food is always in demand, so skilling it up pays for itself (and then some) for the most part, and being able to make your own food saves you a good amount of money over time.

Of course, the ease of doing it is also it's downfall; there's a LOT of cooks out there. Undercutting can be damn annoying, you have to pay attention to the market moreso then other crafts, at least in my observations with friends leveling alchemy, woodworking, and smithing. It's like freaking day-trading at times lol, especially with really fast sellers like yag drinks.

So anyways, if you want an easy craft to level, and don't have a lot of money to dump into it, cooking is the way to go. Just don't expect to make a fortune quick, cooks make their money in volume, not in big ticket single items.

At 100, Goldsmithing > everything else by sooooooo much

Getting there though is another story :s

Really depends on what you are planning on gaining from the craft. Looking to make big money? Looking for effectiveness? looking to just pass the time doing something other than leveling? Just looking to boost achievement points?

I only have limited information to offer since I dont have any 100 crafts... I am working on GS and the appropriate subs atm. I can tell you this. Alchemy 1-60 was very easy and cheap. After selling off what wasnt used in other synths I spent a total of ~450k for the 60 levels and did it in about 3wks. (From what I have heard... again not speaking from experience... after 60 Alchemy is pure HELL!!)

Goldsmithing can be very painful and expensive but the rewards at 100 can be many.

Probably one of the most effective crafts is of course cooking because well... what job doesnt benefit food at somepoint? And it pairs well with fishing which can be raise to 100 simultaneously.

If you are looking to make big money with HQs almost every craft has something for you.

I know this is pretty low... but I usually have around 500k most of the time.



I wanted to do cooking (as it is my highest craft atm...lol), but some people i have talked to, including LS friends, say it is one of the more expensive, and you really dont see a real profit till higher up.

I hear cooking is the easiest, and can be profitable all the way through since people always need moar food.

Woodworking is pretty cheap and easy (I'm up to about 45 I think), and compared to the other crafts I think it's second cheapest to cooking, but has a chance at giving you some big gil HQ synths if you hit 103 like the other crafts do which cooking won't give you (however I think cooking is a better steady income, especially if levelled with fishing)

Leather is fairly simple, especially if you enjoy farming ingredients.

Alchemy is hideously cheap all the way up to like... 80? Can do it all pretty cheap and fast since you can make commonly used items like oils/powders/echos etc. and can see you making a little money early on.

If you're really in it for the long haul and want to know what will make you the most overall money, you need to really know the whole market, know roughly how many active crafters there are at 100+, know your HQ chances, know your prices and the availability of all the ingredients. It's nigh on impossible to work out exactly which craft will make you the most, especially since it could easily change in the time it takes you to get to 100. So really, it just depends on which one you like best. I'd stay away from smithing and goldsmithing, as well as maybe cloth and bone (I haven't touched those two so I'm not sure) as they're really not money makes until much higher levels.

Remember though, that no matter what craft you are, aside from cooking, there will be times when you will advantage from having just about every sub-craft, so there's absolutely no harm in taking one a little way and changing your mind, as you'll want it to 60 eventually anyway.

Cooking is dirty cheap, I don't know what they're talking about. So far there's been like 4 things I needed to buy off of the AH to skill up, and I'm level 83. Everything else has been vendor gotten. No guild purchases are needed as with other crafts, and the only really "necessary" key item you need is Raw Fish Handling, 30k Guild Points. And you don't even need that until the 50's, if not higher, as you're not gonna be making sushi at low levels anyways.

EDIT: Oh yeah, very little farming is required, as well. Of course, it helps the profit margin, but you can even garden those things (sleepshrooms, coral fungus) to save the farm time, too. Cockatrice Meat is the only thing I've ever had to really farm, and that's only because I make Meat Mithkabob's for the LS personal use, not to sell, so that's how I get my "payment" for doing it...they help me farm the *** ^^

Yea cooking is pretty cheap, especially when the NPC's are available with the ingredients :)

I actually am happy I am doing cooking :P

I got from 0-73 in probably a week worth of time.

Only thing that blows about cooking is getting GP. ; ;

To make more gil is always the goal in the end, but my methods of making gil really arent cutting it atm. I really want to start getting into some serious endgame activity, and having more than just 500k will make that easier. So that why i was thinking of looking into crafting.

From what it looks like, Alchemy might be the rout to take?

Excuse my being blunt... But you're friends don't know what the hell they're talking about. Cooking is by far the easiest and cheapest craft to level. You can make a profit on a ton of synths, even npc'ing the results. And you can buy 99% of ingredients from NPC's. Also, the only time it even becomes the slightest bit difficult to level is 90+. But even then, you can just farm jellies off bees for Cursed Soup. Though, it does slow down a ton and I'd recommend a TH4 Thf at least helping you.

It's true that you don't profit from cooking until higher levels with GP key item(s), but most (if not all) skilling up recipies are break-even/profit ***. Trust me - you can get cooking to (100) without being rich.

Okies, I take back Alchemy... and I'll have a chat with the people i got info from about cooking. So, If i really wanted to get going with cooking, just pretty much live at the guild in Windy, since it looks like almost all of the items to use for low level crafting are sold there?

Dude...I turn a profit on almost every synth. May only be a few hundred gil/item, but it all adds up ^^

OMG NO. Buy from regional vendors. The guild fluctuates a TON. Like I said, get max fame...

Smithing, cz I want to make hardcore armor and turn squishy n00bs into brick walls with eyes.

That's true. I have sandy nation and I was ecstatic that sandy had first in region and we had alot of the areas that the ingredients come from. It depends which nation is first or second to get the ingredients especially cheap too.

If windy sold bird eggs, they were at about 120 gil, if sandy has 1st the npc at the airship dock sells them for about 55 gil i believe or 44 but either one it was cheaper.

Gotta research where the vendors may sell them and find the easy routes to get there too

Ya, with cooking you definitely need to do your research. Like I said, having a mule in the three major cities helps tons, and even then sometimes you get the shaft when a given zone is BST controlled. It requires some patience; you have to resist the urge to buy the mats on the AH unless absolutely necessary, because often that will completely wreck your profit margin...

Plan your route, keep an eye on conquest, and save up all your water/fire/dark crystals. You'll use Earth occasionally, too, but far less often then the other three.

Damn, you got my hopes up.

I thought this was going to be a thread about "which craft", not "crafting"!

Heh... just kidding. I like bonecraft, relatively easy, but needs a lot of sub-crafts.
So, I leveled Goldsmithing, which needed very little in sub-crafts.
Now that I am making a decent profit on GS, I'm focusing on bonecrafting. :-D

~Yote

Thanks everyone! I was going to orginally work on cooking, but got sidetracked with other ventures. Since being Elvaan, I can use help with acc/mp/int, I do go through alot of food, so it mught be very benifical.

Ya, I'm Elvaan, too...and being able to make MP refresh drinks in the field can be a life saver (helped me out on WHM countless times), and carrying the mats and making them as you go saves on so much inventory space.

But the inventory isn't so much of an issue in the days of the satchel anymore. >.>

Though, melon/yag drinks are the reason I got Cooking to 60 on my main instead of just having the cooking mule.

I agree I love my satchel <3 for it helped a ***load in space to craft than keep running around back and forth to get more ingredients and mule tons.

Well, yeah, but I don't have the satchel. Was waiting for everyone else to jump on it and get the "debugging" out of the way first before I got it. I'll get it eventually, but as I've got 3 mules with maxed mog safe/storage (and a jeuno mule for selling and ***, as well), space isn't much of an issue for me. I also don't have to deal with the RDM & BLM "every spell has 7 specific, different gear swaps" thing like everyone else lol

hey there :o

as my experience from crafting now over 4 years (never reached 100 except on cooking tho) i can tell you

if you want money, dont do cooking - to make "good" money there you need to do much more crafts then in any craft. Except you lvl fishing at the same time providing you got all the key items it is a good money maker once you can make sushis (and the way up there is all juice->pie->juice->pie->juice->pie) which is pretty cheap (tip: farm your own crystals since that is the most expensive part in cooking to ~60)

so i had cooking 100 like... 3 years ago... why i dont have it anymore you ask? Well the story is... i got annoyed off ppl undercutting the ***out of good crafts like sole sushi / squid sushi and even fishing up black soles / giant squids wasnt worth the time for me anymore... then i did alchemy... Hell yes! Alchemy... what a wonderful craft to make money if you have some patience - i got it to 84... then gave up due to not having enough money supply after that... capped it back to 60 - reskilled cooing up to sole sushi / tav taco lvl and made some 100k doing that...

Ok you say... but my cooking is now only 87 anymore but it was 99 a few ago, yes it was... but then i had a luck streack and money flew into my wallet, so i decided to lvl smithing i got it to 20 with ~100k used up (max) then i started to buy every desynth i could get... did that for a few weeks, lvled it with the gained materials, sold some and i hit 38, 43, 48, 55 (wooo darksteel lvl) and then finally 73 and guess what... it took me 2 month to get there... but since i desynthed(and mined) the ***out of everything i got into my paws i made like ~2-3m up to 73 in total...

Well in short: You dont have much money, lvl like alchemy to 60, take your time and lvl on money makers (even slow selling but still, money makers)

Then take that money into another craft, like cooking or if you wanna take the rist in something more expensive like clothcraft or smithing. But what i can say for sure after 4+ years of crafting... reaching 100 will never be easy and takes a shitload of effort...

With that - happy crafting to you ^^

*Shrugs.* To each their own. I haven't had any problems with it and neither has anyone I know. Plus, me spending $10 on it enables me to not have to have a mule to store stuff.



I find Alchemy to be a great craft to level even if only to 60 'if' you have Smithing leveled at least to 30. Then you can make some very nice profit on bullets.

I'd recommend getting everything to 60 and go from there. Get a sample of what every craft is like the go with what works for you. As long as you farm up crap and not jyst buy it off the ah you can make money in most crafts.

No, I know. I just remember everyone shitting their pants for it before it even came out, and buying it straight away. Wanted to wait until it was proven, heard from peeps that the WoW token caused some serious issues when they did the same thing, and didn't wanna risk a 3-day lockout (or God Forbid have to call S-E) if there was problems...

As for the mules, I'm gonna need them no matter what, for buying mats for cooking without having to go all the way out there in person, as well as list ***in the most beneficial market for it (you know, bonecrafting ***in windy, smithing ***in sandy, etc). Extra dollar a month/mule is totally worth it to me to save the time going from city to city, especially as my crafting nowadays is like "Holy ***it's darksday and a full moon, BRB crafting!!" Totally should pay better attention to game time ^^

But yeah, like I said, I'll get it eventually. Then I'll really never run out of room again lol...