Goldsmithing 59! (FFXI)

[thistlechaser]

So very tired of synthing. Once I hit gold 60, I may never synth again. :P

Started the evening with chocobo digging. Not bad results (4 gold beastcoins), but the nice thing was that I had the entire zone to myself the whole time. I was worried about digging in the evening (my bag had been too full of metals to do it at lunchtime), but yay for turing out well!

Stupid raise-a-chocobo still hasn't let me find the key item (5 walks = 5 fails tonight alone). This might be related to him suddenly hating me. (He can barely stand being near me.) That might be the cause of him biting the damned kids for seven days in a row now. Still no stats change, either. Tomorrow I'm going to give him TWO cupid worms before we go looking for the key item, maybe that'll make him happy enough to let me find it (supposedly the two things are related).

Next Dani and I were going to do her belated wedding gift! Back when she first married Des, she was a wee little crafting mule, thus couldn't go farm jelly in CN to finish her cooking skilling. As a gift, I gave her an evening of my farming services! Unfortunately today might be the very worst time to farm those bees ever. (The jelly goes into chocoelixers, which are at an all time high price right now.) We gave up after a short time -- just too many other farmers there. We'll go again once things have settled down. :) The funny thing is, now she's a big WHM (even at level 57, she almost has more HP than DRK75-me!) and could probably farm just fine on her own. But it'll be fun to spend time together, and two will be able to kill faster than one!

All that took about an hour, total. For the rest of the night I worked on goldsmithing. Got from 55.5 to 59.0! Oh my god, so close to being done! And so so so much money gone. As a very rough estimate, it took me about a million gil to go from smithing 30 to 60 AND to get gold from 20 to 51. Goldsmithing 51 to 59 has taken me about 2.7 million. The big difference is not just that goldsmithing 51+ uses so much mythril, it's that it's nearly 100% loss. I can vendor items for 2-3K each (costs very roughly 23K to make one), or desynth in hopes of skill (ha ha) or getting materials back.

Still, just one more level, then I'll be done! Finished! Yay!

Oh, for those who wanted to know the details: .

I continued with Hydro Claws until 56.9 (I was intending to go to 57, but ran out of materials). 56 was very very slow, even though the item cap was 59. So many synths, too. Ingot to sheet (and ore to ingot, if you have access). Animal glue, if you need to make that. Make steel ingots. Steel ingot + beetle jaw = claws. Claws + glue = mythril sheet = skillup item. I feel horrible that I bought glue near the end; I've sold so much for profit, I know how much it costs to make vs buy, but I couldn't add another synth in there (plus my supply of raw materials to make it was low).

56.9 I switched to Mythril Cuisses (fire, mythril sheet x2, ram leather, cap 61). Double the mythril, but fewer synths! Skillups were really nice, plus you can desynth them for 1-2 leathers or 1-2 ingots back. (I got zero skillups for desynthing 30 hydro claws (1 level under cap) and 40 of these (many levels under cap). YMMV.) I got tired of desynthing (and wasn't getting much back) so vendored for a huge loss, getting about 3K each.

For 59 to 60, I'm either going to continue the Cuisses or do Hydro Patas (Fire, Mythril Sheet, Animal Glue, Bone Patas. Caps at 67), or something else. I'm really, really not sure I can handle doing the Patas, as I can't deal with that many pre-synths before the skillup synth. The higher cap might mean nice skillups though... There just are no real options, other than those two. Not unless I want to skill on gold, darksteel, or platinum (which I do not). I do have almost a stack of gold ingots (from digging) and I could use those of I had to, but I'd rather sell them once all this is over.

Oh well, I'll decide tomorrow! Hopefully goldsmithing 60 tomorrow! Yay!

Comments

[genomeffxi.livejournal.com]

Unless cupid worms are free on your server, why spend the money when sharug greens are almost as effective? A single one each day is enough to make mine go from "wants to be with you all the times" before i feed it to it to "considers you as its parent" right after.

Also congratulations on gold 59! But man 2.7 mil I could never spend that much o.O (and not just because I never had that much gil).
Still I think i'll level up to 60 soon too you got me motivated to finish that up fast.

Also my chocobo can only go on 2-3 walks a day at most so I don't have my whistle yet either, he's always 'happy' >

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

why spend the money when sharug greens are almost as effective? A single one each day is enough to make mine go from "wants to be with you all the times" before i feed it to it to "considers you as its parent" right after.

Right, but that's your bird. Every bird has a different favorite food, and as I've fed mine nothing but carrots, I have no idea what mine's is. Since I've now gone two days without the whistle, I'd rather not spend another couple days experimenting and tring to find out what the favorite food is.

Plus, I grew the worms, so they're sort of free anyway. Sure I could sell them for money, but at least I don't have to buy them.

Also congratulations on gold 59! But man 2.7 mil I could never spend that much o.O (and not just because I never had that much gil).

Thanks! It's not too shocking, since leathercraft is almost as bad, but I still hate seeing how much (little) money I have now. :/

Also my chocobo can only go on 2-3 walks a day at most so I don't have my whistle yet either, he's always 'happy' >

Ugh. The only "plus" side I have is that mine is never happy anymore. I'm not sure how much of a plus that is though...

[genomeffxi.livejournal.com]

about the greens, I am pretty sure it is not at all dependent on each chocobo. cupid worms should raise affection no matter what your chocobo likes, and so do sharug greens. The NPC guy says that too, and so does wikipedia ( http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/Sharug_Greens )
I never fed these to the chocobo until I saw his affection go down (when he was already near adult).

For leathercrafting cost you mean past level 60 I am assuming? It was no loss and only fast profit for me until 60. For gold I might do platinum ingots in a level or two, since they give a small profit with a small chance of loss vs a guaranteed loss for about as much with mythril items =P

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Leathercrafting is sort of a different situation for me. Back when I leveled it (almost two years ago now) I had zero contact with any other crafters (no one in my LS had even a single level of crafting, and I knew one single person outside my LS), and the only guide I had was Alla. I lost a whole lot of money not only because I had very little clue what I was doing, but also because my main job was WHM and I enjoyed XPing as much then as I do now (which is to say, not at all). You can't farm for a whole lot as WHM 20!

I got into the mid-50s this way, just sort of fumbling my way along. So, now, this goldsmithing I'm doing seems much like that.

For gold I might do platinum ingots in a level or two, since they give a small profit with a small chance of loss vs a guaranteed loss for about as much with mythril items =P

I considered that, but you also have to look at the number of synths you'll have to do. Very rough estimate, but I probably had to do about 50 synths to get one level. Right now, per ffxiah, plat ingots are going for 30K on your server. (Wow, they're 48K on mine!) At four ores per synth, how many will you be able to do?

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Eh. "So, now, this goldsmithing I'm doing seems much like that." as in money-wise, not that I have no clue what I'm doing.

[genomeffxi.livejournal.com]

Hmm well on my server Plat.Ingots are 90-100k in Jeuno actually, the ores are 30k. Also the ingots sell for more in bastok, slower of course, but in there when they sell they sell for more than the sum of 4 ores You can do ore+6nuggets and I get lots of ores anyways from digging. Both our servers seem a bit too full of platinum at the moment though (I forget, you are on Bahamuth right? 25k ore and 85k ingot) so I think that's why the price is lower than the ingot itself. But with ingots you can hold on to them easily until the market changes, especially if it was from bulky ores you didn't feel like selling every day. (Since you like gardening you can make plat.nuggets from that too i guess, although it takes a while i think).

For leathercraft, I also did it a couple of years ago but i never followed any guide, I just did materials instead of items because I never had more than 10k on me at any time. So I would go directly from 1 leather type to the next. Sheep leather, Ram leather, etc. A small profit but it actually helped, and starting 10 levels before the cap i often got skillups without even using up materials.
I did the same for clothcraft, go from 1 type of fletchling to another directly (actually I paired up that with bonecraft and woodworking and made arrows), very cheap or at profit.

I only have a few hundred K to my name as usual, but this way it's basically no cost and no loss, I am not in a huge hurry since those last 4-5 levels and clothcraft 90+ are the only crafts left, I am already done with XP completely, done with gear completely, I don't want to burn out the last few activities completely too fast, especially if I can couple it with digging and other relaxing things =P

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

(I forget, you are on Bahamuth right?

Midgar. :)

I am not in a huge hurry since those last 4-5 levels and clothcraft 90+ are the only crafts left, I am already done with XP completely, done with gear completely, I don't want to burn out the last few activities completely too fast, especially if I can couple it with digging and other relaxing things =P

*laughs* Good point! But I have a hard time going slow, as most people have probably seen by now.

[barahir-ffxi.livejournal.com]

I've never fed a worm to my choco, so i can't comment on that... but just how every type of food has a version that affects it in a certain way, Grasses are medicinal, Carrots raise stats, greens raise affection. Azouph greens are what I've been using to go back to parent status every day. 1 Azouph & 2 Vomp Carrots and affection hasn't waned yet.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I just harvested about 9475874350974383275405701 various greens this morning, so luckily I have a bunch on hand! I'll toss one of those into the mix, too. Maybe it'll start loving me again. Or else!

[linmayu.livejournal.com]

Only Thistle would give a girl his "services" as a wedding present. xD

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that was the joke at the time. I announced her gift as "a night with me, to be used however she likes~" then I tacked on a suggestion that she might want to use it for bee farming. Des still punched me though. Heehee.