Critical Break: 0-60 Series: Bonecraft

Critical Break is our crafting and economics column written by Qtipus. Q is an experienced crafter and also well versed in using the Auction House to turn a decent profit. Enough so that he was able to fund his own relic, Gungnir. Every Tuesday you will find Q's rants, raves and good crafting practices here. This week, Q starts a series of do-it-yourself guides that update how to go from 0-60 in various crafts.

While digging through Wikipedia the other day, I ran across some guides again that I haven't looked at in a while. Some of them are rather outdated given the rather seismic shift in the economy since they were written. Because of this, I have decided to write up a series of crafting guides to get all your crafts to 60 as cheap as possible.

Before I get started though, I need to point out that I tried to stick with items you could farm up with relative ease to actually ease the cost of burning a craft to 60. I also need to point out that what may be "burning" to some people is not necessarily "burning" to me. My definition of burning a craft combines the all out mauling of game critters in conjunction with AH purchases and the synthing process itself.

In short...the cheapest and fastest way to your goal.

So without further adieu...Bonecraft, 0-60.



Bonecrafting is one of the easiest and cheapest crafts to get to 60. If you spend the time farming up bone chips (especially for the first 17 levels and middle-end 30-50ish...), it will cost you virtually nothing sans crystal costs. Even then, there are enough creatures floating around that simply leveling a job from 1-10 will net you a good portion of the wind crystals you will end up using. Should you not want to do that, buy your wind crystals in Windurst from the AH conveniently located next to the guild. Buying them off the Jeuno AH will usually mean you're spending twice as much.

Phase 1: Bone-Chip-A-Palooza

For this phase, you will be spending a lot of time farming in Gusgen Mines.

Some guides suggest using shell powder to level 3. That's perfectly fine and all, but I found if you pick up your bone chips for less than 1k/stack or farm them up, it works out to be about the same. The true advantage to doing shell powder instead of this relies on guild prices being cheap enough to justify it and AH prices for a stack of sea shells being in line as well. NPC the results of either for break even or profit if you farmed up the chips.

Recipe: Wind Crystal + 1x Bone Chip
Cap: Level 4

Same deal as the Hairpins. Farm up your bone chips or buy them off the AH for 1k/stack or less. You'll lose a little gil here if you bought solely off the AH, but not much. Certainly little enough that you can go maul a few gigas in Xarc to make up for it.

Recipe: Wind Crystal + 2x Bone Chip
Cap: Level 9

Turn in a Shell Ring and welcome to the next level.

This is the only recipe that I will list that requires a sub craft. Don't be dumb and buy your Brass Ingots off the AH. It will literally only cost you about 500-600/ingot if you take the time to buy zinc ores off the AH and the copper ores from guild or Denvihr (inside the Airship Dock). You're going to have to level the Goldsmithing sub at some point anyway too, so make yourself 2ish stacks of these ingots and go to town making the earrings. AH the results in the starter cities as they're relatively popular earrings for leveling new jobs.

Recipe: Wind Crystal, 1x Brass Ingot, 2x Bone Chip
Cap: Level 12

Spend some time in Konschtat Highlands mauling sheep. Having 3-4 stacks of sheep teeth should be enough for the 5 levels you're about to cover. If farming isn't your thing, buy off the AH for relatively cheap or buy from the guild. Either way, as long as you buy the bone chips and the teeth for 1k/stack or less each, then you can NPC the results for pretty close to break even. Save one of these for your rank item when you hit 18 during the next synth.

Recipe: Wind Crystal, 1x Bone Chip, 1x Sheep Tooth.
Cap: Level 17

Phase 2: Beetle-Parts-Palooza

Pick your favorite spot to maul beetles. I found the ones in Crawler's Nest to be the most friendly when it came to the beetle jaw portions. Most beetles have friendly shell drop rates, so picking a spot where respawns happen in 5 minutes would be most beneficial. Jugner Forest tends to be the best spot for the shells since there's an area in the central-north region that beetles seem to be present in spades. Save those insect wings too, you'll be using them in the Clothcraft burn.

Take some wind crystals with you and just farm the shells for these. The shells are cheap on the AH as well, but the drop rate is such that there really isn't a need to buy them unless you're just in a hurry. Carapace powder really only has one use, so AH'ing your results here will be a slow and painful process. Buying shells off AH will usually result in a net loss of 1k or more and given you have 4 levels to cover here, that can add up pretty quick if you NPC the results.

Recipe: Wind Crystal, 2x Beetle Shell
Cap: Level 21


Popular among the lower level rangers and pretty doggone cheap to make to boot. Farm up your beetle jaws and AH the results for 1k or more unless you get lucky with an HQ.

Recipe: Wind Crystal, 1x Beetle Jaw
Cap: Level 25

Need more beetle jaws for this portion too. These actually sell faster than the beetle rings on the AH. It's entirely possible to skip the rings entirely and just go straight to this, but I opted to put those in there due to the fact that there's more risk of loss should you bust a synth. Buy your silver earrings from Adelflete in the Lower Jeuno shop called "Gems by Kshama." These sell as fast as they do for two reasons:

1. They're damn good for the level, especially the HQs.
2. Bonecrafters making a living on these will buy them to desynth for silver ingots.

Again, skip the beetle rings altogether if you want as there is risk of loss trying to cover 6 levels here. Save one for your guild item. Hopefully your fame is high enough in Jeuno to take advantage of the lower earring prices.

Recipe: Wind Crystal, 1x Beetle Jaw, 1x Silver Earring
Cap: Level 27

You're going to lose a little money here if you buy all the horns off the AH, but farming the ram horns themselves are a pain too. Skip to Beetle Arrowheads if you want here, but it probably wouldn't hurt to bridge the gap as Beetle Arrowheads are a loss as well unless you've farmed up all of the mats.

Recipe: Wind Crystal, 1x Ram Horn
Cap: Level 29

Phase 3: Arrowheads-A-Palooza

Once you get to 30, you can start taking advantage of synthesis support and picking up key items. Picking up the Filing key item here allegedly makes skilling up through this section go faster, but given I was already well beyond this point when Filing actually came out, I have no way to really verify it.

Farm up tons of Bone Chips yet again, you're going to need them.

Popular arrow for skilling up Woodworking as well as for leveling up jobs that can actually use it. Unfortunately, they sell for a loss per stack if you buy up your mats off the AH.

Recipe: Wind Crystal, 1x Bone Chip, 1x Beetle Jaw
Cap: Level 33

Same deal as the Beetle Arrowheads, only they don't sell as fast and sell for even more of a loss. Good news is that the fangs are easier to farm up than the jaws.

Recipe: Wind Crystal, 1x Bone Chip, 1x Black Tiger Fang
Cap: Level 38

Pick up a horn ring off the AH or make one and turn it in to reach level 4.

Same boat as the Fang Arrowheads. Not very useful to many people and slow sellers. They will sell though, so have patience.

Recipe: Wind Crystal, 1x Bone Chip, 1x Ram Horn
Cap: Level 43

Hopefully you still have some beetle jaws laying around and some ram horns. Some will consider this synth optional and go straight for scorpion arrowheads due to the ease of farming. If you do nothing but farm your mats, I say go for it, but if you want to use a bit of a bridge synth, this is best way to go.

Recipe: Wind Crystal, 1x Ram Horn, 1x Beetle Jaw
Cap: Level 47

Here's where it gets easy. The vast majority of scorpions have a very high drop rate on their claws. Some of them in Crawler's Nest have a 100% drop rate on a claw, but their 16 minute respawn and limited number of spawns make it a bit of a nuisance to deal with. Should you pick up scorpion shells as well (and you'll pick up a few for sure), save them for a later synth.

Recipe: Wind Crystal, 1x Scorpion Claw, 1x Bone Chip
Cap: Level 53

Turn in a Carapace Gorget to reach the final level of this burn when you hit 48.

Phase 4: Almost There...

I have no idea why a level 1 piece of gear is a level 57 synth, but such is life. It's also such that this is a very cheap synth. Farm up some Yagudo Bead Necklaces and turn them into grass thread (part of the clothcraft burn). Farm up some Giant Femurs from the Dhalmels in Buburimu Peninsula and either go farm up fiend blood or buy it off the AH. AH the results for 1k or so in the starter cities. There isn't much of anything available at level 1 for the waist slot, but most people don't care about that slot at that level anyway. Use this as a bridge synth mostly.

Recipe: Wind Crystal, 1x Fiend Blood, 1x Grass Thread, 1x Giant Femur
Cap: Level 57

Due to drop rates being not-so-great on the shells, I recommend doing as little of this synth as possible due to the annoyance factor. This is why I listed the Blood Stone. There's also the option of the Beetle Knife to 59 as the materials for it are readily available and not so hard to farm up. However, given the fact that these shells make their appearance on the AH rather frequently and are priced anywhere from 1-2k generally, it's a mostly reasonable synth to deal with. Farming up the shells can be pain-staking work at times, but if you stick with it and farm up all you need, then you're not going to really spend anything other than crystal costs. These sell somewhat decently for close to cost on the AH. These will take you to 60 as well.

Recipe: Wind Crystal, 1x Scorpion Shell
Cap: Level 60

Conclusion

This is the first of this 0-60 Series. Most crafts aren't all that expensive to get to 60, even if you buy all your mats off the AH and can recover the gil lost from it relatively easy through other means. However, gil-burning a craft to 60 (or even 100 in some cases) often times will wreck the market for certain items. Bonecrafting (up to 60) is fortunate enough to have a rather unwavering set of recipes that only require you to spend a lot of time farming 2-3 certain items that are used in nearly every one of them if you don't want to waste a lot of money. On top of that, they're rather common items to boot and are readily available through farming or the AH.

Next up: Clothcraft