Critical Break: 0-60 Series: Woodworking

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 continues his 0-60 series with part three covering Woodworking.

Woodworking I found to be a lot of fun, but a gargantuan pain on my inventory space. I also found it to be fun because this is one of those crafts that most people can actually relate to in the real world.

Well maybe not most people, but I could given that a number of my relatives are carpenters to some degree. Some made entire careers out of it while others, like my pops, just builds a piece of furniture from time to time for special occasions and whatnot.

In the previous two editions of the 0-60 series, I relied a lot on farming up your materials to at least break even or make money while you made your way to 60. Woodworking isn't really something you can go out and farm up mats for in a reasonable amount of time. So the approach here is to find items you can buy from the guild or the AH, then resell or use later to make your money back or even profit quite a bit from it.

I know, I know...THANK GOD NOT MUCH FARMING IN THIS ONE!

Don't get too excited...


Phase 1: Learning to Work Your Wood

This is a pretty standard opener for any guide that's written. Buy your lumber from the guild. It's super cheap and in very large supply. You can also log this up pretty easily in Ghelsba Outpost.

Recipe: Wind Crystal, 1x Arrowwood Log
Cap: Level 2

Another pretty standard second step through various guides. Again, buy your logs from the guild, make a couple Canadian jokes and synth away. Save your lumber for the next synth.

Recipe: Wind Crystal, 1x Maple Log
Cap: Level 5

You can skip this if you want, but I listed it here simply for the fact that you're not going to have any more use for your maple lumber aside from a couple guild rank items. You can synth this up and recover what little gil you lost buying straight from the guild. Pick up the super-cheap chocobo feathers from an NPC for < 10 gil ea., AH the results in starter cities, and you're in business.

Recipe: Wind Crystal, 1x Chocobo Feather, 1x Maple Lumber
Cap: Level 6

More lumber. Get used to it. It is Woodworking after all. Buy Ash logs from AH or Guild. Another dirt cheap log to work with. Save your results for a later synth. Buy a workbench off the AH since they're usually below cost due to people skilling up on them and turn it in to go to the next rank.

Recipe: Wind Crystal, 1x Ash Log
Cap: Level 8

Yet again, buy off AH (usually cheaper) or guild, synth away. This can be skipped entirely for the next synth if you're comfortable with a bit more of a level gap.

Recipe: Wind Crystal, 1x Holly Log
Cap: Level 12

The logs for these are usually cheaper on the AH than they are from the guild, but check both spots anyway to be sure. The resale value on these sucks, so you'll lose a little money here unless you farm a few up.

Recipe: Wind Crystal, 1x Willow Log
Cap: Level 13

Phase 2: Sugar and Bolts and Everything Nice

You're not going to make a huge amount of money on this, but you will make money nonetheless. Hit up a buddy with alchemy leveled to 81 or higher and have them make you a half stack or so of bloody bolt heads. Farm up the beastmen blood from leeches in Pashhow Marshlands to turn this loss into a profit.

The reason I picked these instead of something easier like Bronze Bolts is strictly due to money. These things sell pretty quickly on the AH and you'll end up making 1-2k/stack if you do it right by farming up most of the mats. This is also where you're going to be using your previously synthed Ash Lumber.

Recipe: Earth Crystal, 1x Bloody Bolt Head, 1x Ash Lumber
Cap: Level 16

I didn't like this synth very much. The sugar will sell on the AH for about 1k/stack each and it takes a minimum of 4 logs to make a stack. You won't lose money, but you'll be sitting on this for a while unless Sandy is third in the conquest rankings. I found while making all of this sugar that making fun of Canada again caused the time to go by faster and the skill ups to come quicker.

If you saved some of your previously made maple lumber, turn it into a maple table and rank up at 18.

Recipe: Lightning Crystal, 1x Maple Log
Cap: Level 21

Phase 3: Back to the Lumber

This is a bit of a horrible stretch when it comes to keeping your money around.

Buying the logs for 2k or less will keep this generally at a break-even point. They're usually in decent supply, so finding them for this price usually isn't an issue, but going any higher will definitely cause you to lose money. This is a long stretch for one type of lumber synth too. Cap on these and then turn in a harp for your rank up. Hopefully you've made a little money on the previous synths to balance the potential loss here out.

Recipe: Wind Crystal, 1x Chestnut Log
Cap: Level 28

This is listed here mostly as a bridge synth, but also as a bit of a money synth. Farm up 2-3 stacks of bird feathers and make some room on a mule. These things sell pretty decently as a lot of mage jobs find some good benefit out of the stats. You can also start taking advantage of synthesis support here as well.

Recipe: Wind Crystal, 1x Bird Feather, 1x Chestnut Lumber
Cap: Level 32

Same deal as the Chestnut Lumber, only a little more expensive. The AH is usually cheaper than the guild. Sell your results on the AH. Depending on how patient you are, singles generally sell for more than the stack average.

Recipe: Wind Crystal, 1x Oak Log
Cap: Level 35

Phase 4: I Say...Is That An Arrow in Your Pocket?

Here come some money makers. Take note of the nation that's in first and be ready to start moving around to wherever the bundling NPC is. This is also a good time to mention the Lumberjack key item as well.

If you're leveling bonecraft along with this, at 33, you can make your own beetle arrowheads for this synth. Farming up the beetle jaws (should only need a stack or less) will save you the vast majority of the cost in this synth. Chocobo Fletchings cost next to nothing and you may or may not still have some arrowwood lumber laying around. These sell for a good profit on the AH if you spend a little time farming the jaws up.

Turn in a Traversiere for your rank up.

Recipe: Earth Crystal, 1x Chocobo Fletchings, 1x Arrowwood Lumber, 1x Beetle Arrowhead
Cap: Level 39

These sell about the same pace as the beetle arrows for the same margin. Also the same deal as before with farming up the fangs in this. You shouldn't need more than a stack of fangs. Kill some Yagudos for the fletching portion of this synth and buy up some more arrowwood lumber.

Recipe: Earth Crystal, 1x Fang Arrowhead, 1x Arrowwood Lumber, 1x Yagudo Fletching
Cap: Level 42

At this point, you've got a couple different options. The first is if you don't have alchemy at 29. The second is if you do. Or you could skip these two recipes altogether and just go straight to making more arrows.

AH is almost always cheaper for this log than the guild. The lumber sells for a bit of a profit too. Problem is the log isn't always available, which is why the lumber sells for a slight profit.

Recipe: Wind Crystal, 1x Rosewood Log.
Cap: Level 45.

This is the more popular option for this particular stretch. There's money to be made here. Not an incredible amount, but when you factor in that this is a key ingredient in making Shihei, you'll often times catch lazy woodworkers taking a bit of a shortcut. As of this writing, the stacks of these generally sell for ~5k on the AH with a mat cost of ~3k. If you choose to go this route, you'll need alchemy at 29 (or near it). Buy the moko grass and distilled water from NPC (both in Port San d'Oria) then synth away.

Recipe: Lightning Crystal, 1x Moko Grass, 1x Elm Log, 1x Distilled Water.
Cap: Level 45

Starting to see a pattern here? You don't need much in the way of materials for the arrowheads. Farm up a stack of ram horns, turn them into horn arrowheads if you're leveling Bonecraft alongside of this, then synth away. These sell about the same pace as the previous two arrow synths we've done, but the horns are a bit more of a pain to come across due to the low number of ram spawns.

Cap on these and turn in your final rank item, a Rose Wand.

Recipe: Earth Crystal, 1x Horn Arrowhead, 1x Bird Fletching 1x Arrowwood Lumber
Cap: Level 49

Starting to sound a little repetitive with this guide, but the AH again is far cheaper than the Guild, but the AH usually won't have a huge supply of them around. This is mostly to close the gap a bit to your next synth.

Recipe: Wind Crystal, 1x Mahogany Log
Cap: Level 51

This is a large gap to cover this far into the game with one synth, but with synthesis support and the farming of your arrowhead materials (especially if you're leveling clothcraft and bonecraft along side of this...), you will gain money pretty easily during this part of the process. Unfortunately, you're going to need a lot of room too.

Recipe: Earth Crystal, 1x Insect Fletching, 1x Scorpion Arrowhead, 1x Arrowwood Lumber
Cap: Level 59

Phase 5: WTF...One More Level Is a "Phase"?

Yes, because this is one of the spots where there are a lot of differing opinions on what's best to cap this off. Some will suggest doing Chests while others will suggest going straight to your next bolt synth (darksteel bolts, but those are unnecessarily expensive to do.)

This is my personal favorite given how inexpensive the logs are on the AH and the fact that you can usually turn them around for twice you cost. The lumber also sells relatively fast as well. Why?

Well Ebony Lumber is used in the Elemental Staves synth and if a woodworker doesn't catch the logs on the AH, they'll usually resort to just buying the lumber outright.

Recipe: Wind Crystal, 1x Ebony Log
Cap: Level 60 for our purposes, but the cap is actually 61.

I mention this one and the next one due to the inexpensive cost of the materials and the sheer profit on them. Their cap is a little higher than that of the Ebony Lumber, but nothing synthesis support won't help you overcome. The results sell a little sluggishly, but they do sell.

Recipe: Wind Crystal, 1x Feyweald Lumber, 1x Gargouille Eye
Cap: Level 60 for our purposes, level 63 otherwise.




Recipe: Wind Crystal, 1x Turquoise, 1x Gargouille Horn, 1x Feyweald Lumber
Cap: Level 60 for our purposes, level 63 otherwise.

So there you have it. Unlike the previous two entries in the 0-60 series, it's entirely feasible to make a decent chunk of gil in the last 20+ levels of Woodworking even though you probably lost a bit in the first 40. Overall, Woodworking is one of the easiest crafts to get to 60, even if you don't have the sub-crafts or parallel crafts I mentioned along the way here. It's also a craft that's used as a subcraft for a lot of different main crafts.

Next week: Leathercraft