Showing posts with label Smithing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Smithing. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Critical Break: 60-100 Series: Smithing

Posted by Qtipus at 10:00 AM

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 60-100 series with the seventh installment: Smithing. This week's special guest commentator/contributor is a man who keeps way too many ingots in his inventory for his own good: Blaize.

Let's cut right to the chase, because there's a lot to go over in this guide. Wise Owl has Smithing summed up precisely when you go to him seeking advanced synthesis support.

Alright. Clench your teeth and get ready to feel the power of Wise Owl.


Smithing sucks to level. It's not as bad as Goldsmithing, but it still sucks. This guide is going to cover just how much it sucks in a manner that departs from the norms of my other guides. A run down of the basic crafting questions:

Does it have consumables? Not particularly unless you count a few different arrow heads, ninja tools and bolt heads that aren't used to a great degree. Ingots, sheets, chains and whatnot could be counted as consumables, but not in the traditional sense of the word.

Does it have in-demand mid-range gear? Yes. There's a very wide variety of armor and weapons to choose from. Granted, most of them sell for a loss, but the HQs will make you a little bit of money if you happen to win the HQ lottery. There's a few too many to list here, but generally speaking...if it's a weapon of some sort, it's probably got something to do with Smithing.

Does it have in-demand end-game gear? Yes. This is probably one of Smithing's strong points. The Shadow set and the Adaman set have some of the better pieces in the game for the jobs that can use them. You could also classify Salvage bodies in the "Smithing End-Game Cursed sets" category due to the Imp. Wootz Ingots and cursing at the prices that are required. There's not a lot of money to be made in the cursed sets here, but it's a decently steady income on some of the items and a whole lot of money if you happen to HQ a cursed hauberk or cursed breastplate.

Blaize's Intro: Smithing is definitely one of those crafts that is useful to have, but you can never be quite sure why it is. At times it seems like the only steady income is catching shouts for people with high smithing skill to make them something... especially on a server like Odin that has been closed down for new arrivals for months, and it seems like everyone has everything they need for everything they'll ever level already. But, I don't want to discourage leveling smithing, despite what may seem like very little reason to. One thing you can be sure of: This isn't something for a starving artist to undertake. Make sure you've got a nice-sized bankroll before taking smithing beyond 60. Also, there are stretches that will test your patience in both material availability and speed of sales on AH. In the end though, having 100 smithing will put you in a very select group, and it is quite an accomplishment.

Guide after the jump per usual.


First of all, you need to get Goldsmithing and Woodworking to 60 each. Don't complain, just do it.

Secondly, you won't necessarily need any key items for this guide other than maybe Sheeting for a few of the later synths, but you will need to make sure you have every +1 Smithing Skill item you can get the second you can get it from a level standpoint. Having that extra skill level plus the synthesis support will minimize your breaks by a ton.

Lastly, there are a few stretches where I depart from my usual "Five-level gap or less only" mentality due to the sheer ridiculousness of material costs for anything that could possibly bridge.

Phase 1: This isn't so bad...

The Erlking weapons used for the various Fairy fights are decent alternatives to what I've got listed here. I didn't list them in this guide due to their values changing over time. Pay attention to their resale value and their sales frequency, then make your own decision from there.

A continuation of the 0-60 Smithing guide. Same deal applies. Go farm up your silk threads from Crawler's Nest and make your own Iron Sheets unless the AH has them for 2.8k or less. NPC your results for almost break even.

Recipe: Earth Crystal, 1x Iron Sheet, 1x Silk Thread
Cap: Level 66

Definitely worth looking into if you don't want to spend your time farming silk threads all damn day. Swamp Ores are usually 1k or less on the AH and you can always buy the 3 iron ores you need from the guild. This ingot is used in 10 of the Fairy fight weapon synths, so there's usually decent amount of demand for the ingots themselves.

Recipe: Fire Crystal, 3x Iron ore, 1x Swamp Ore
Cap: Level 67

If you manage to get your Elm Lumber cost under 2k ea and your Darksteel Ingot cost under 10k ea, you can NPC this for close to break even. Getting Elm Lumber at that price isn't always easy. If you have a woodworking buddy at 76 or higher, see if you can get them to make you a few stacks of Elm Lumber for spammage (they do have Lumberjack...right?). Turn in a Bascinet when you hit 68 for your rank up.

Recipe: Fire Crystal, 1x Elm Lumber, 1x Darksteel Ingot
Cap: Level 73


Phase 2: Pain.

A lot of people will normally just skip to Karimata Arrowheads here. They're simply too much of a loss for me want to risk that level gap. You'll want to hold onto your results here for the next synth.

Recipe: Fire Crystal, 2x Copper Ore, 1x Tin Ore, 1x Darksteel Ore
Cap: Level 74

Use your previous results here and sell them on the AH. These are used in the WAR AF+1 and AF2+1 upgrade quests. Certainly not in huge demand, but hopefully you won't have more than a couple stacks of these to go through since you only did one level.

Recipe: Fire Crystal, 1x Dark Bronze Ingot
Cap: Level 75

These suck. A four level gap here is a lot better than a six level gap when you consider the fact that at the bare minimum, your material cost per synth will be nearly 7k/synth buying everything from NPC (making your own Iron Ingots and buying the Tama-Hagane from a Tenshodo guild rep). Since it takes 17 synths to make a stack, your stack cost will end up being just shy of 120k/stack.

The arrowhead stacks sell for 30-40k on Odin currently. Given the alternatives in this level range, just suck it up and plow through it. Personally, I would seek out a friend with Woodworking at 100+ to make Kabura arrows for you (7k/stack on Odin currently). Going this route, you'll end up with a ton of arrows and a friend that probably hates you, but you will offset your financial loss greatly. The Kabura arrows cap at WW 91, so you might even consider finding someone in the process of skilling up WW.

No Arrow Synth = ~80k loss per stack of arrowheads (every 17 synths).

With Arrow Synth (all NQ and assuming one stack of arrowheads = 1 level): 132 stacks of Kabura Arrows meaning you just turned a 320k loss into a ~450k gil profit w/o taking the other materials of the arrow itself into consideration (Ram horn, giant bird fletchings, bamboo stick etc). You're obviously not going to find or be able to carry that many bamboo sticks or ram horns all at once, so you can eat up the investment for now and hopefully your woodworking friend will still log in to help you after the first batch...

Turn in a Bastard Sword when you hit 78 for your next rank.

Recipe: Wind Crystal, 1x Iron Ingot, 1x Tama-Hagane
Cap: Level 79

Blaize Comment: Another good option when you reach ~77, and what I did to get to 82, is Troll Bronze Sheets. Fire Crystal + Troll Bronze Ingot. A steady supply of ingots is available, believe it or not. Troll Pauldrons and Troll Vambraces can be desynthed into Troll Bronze Ingots if you hit HQ on them. The desynths are level 79 smithing, so unfortunately you can't skill up on them if you're 77 or higher at this point. The troll parts are usually 1k apiece on AH and people who spend their time mining in Mount Zhayolm can attest to how often these come up. Don't toss them, put them on AH for some chump leveling smithing to pick up, they'll be grateful. If you end up doing this, send the resulting sheets to a mule for a couple of possible synths using -1 troll items in the 90s.

Phase 3: It Does Get Better Doesn't It...?

Blaize Comment: If you're feeling lucky (and your clothcraft is 49 or higher) this is the point at which you'll reach your highest tier for making Haubergeon +1. You have a 1 in 10 shot of hitting an HQ at this point, and on most servers the +1 will sell for slightly more than 10 times the material cost, so if you've got deep pockets, here's a nice chance of making a decent chunk of change in a short amount of time. Miss, though, and you've got 10 NQ Haubs that you can't even give away to gimp DRKs in Bhaflau Thickets.

For those of you with nothing but time on your hands, a good way to make it through this section is to mine the crap out of Mount Zhayolm. Not only will you pick up some adaman ore that is needed to advance your skill, but every so often you'll hit on the much sought-after Khroma Ore, which you can either save for Imperial Wootz Ingot synthing later on (lol) or sell for 400k+ a pop. Not to mention the countless iron and steel ingots you'll make while waiting for the next "six-letter ore" to appear - this is definitely one of the better ways to go to fund the climb to 100, at the very least.

Purely a bridge synth. These are relatively in demand and will sell for a slight loss. You don't have to do these, but considering breaks on the next synth will be far more painful than breaks on this synth, consider trying to get a level or two out of it before moving on.

Recipe: Earth Crystal, 1x Darksteel Sollerets, 1x Steel Sheet
Cap: Level 83

Do not make your own ingots for this yet and save your results. Buy the ingots off the AH as it is usually cheaper to do this than buying the ores for it. The sheets will hold their value against the ingot sale price usually, so the only real danger here are breaks.

Recipe: Fire Crystal, 1x Adaman Ingot
Cap: Level 85

When I ran across this, I had to do a bit of a double take. Most guides will have you jump to Adaman Ingots at this point in the game. You're more than welcome to do so here if the material cost is less than the ingot cost. However, this ingot has a couple of surprise uses that will help out quite a bit.

First, it's used in a fairy fight weapon that's purchased commonly (albeit at a slight loss on Odin), but you don't want to use it for that.

Second, it's used in the next synth and benefits from a slightly larger level gap going from Ingot-Sheet than most of it's other counter parts. You do want to use it for that. Hold onto your results, you just might've made yourself some money and avoided losing 6 figures potentially doing Adaman Ingots.

Recipe: Fire Crystal, 1x Adaman Ore, 2x Darksteel Ore, 1x Iron Ore
Cap: Level 86

A three level gap that you can cover with a stackable synth that actually sells for a slight profit some days. These are used in every one of the cursed items for the Shadow Set. Even though at this point, you're not a high enough level to make the cursed items in this set, there are plenty of people who are and plenty of people who do. Turn in a Celata for your final rank, make to cap and move onto the final phase.

Recipe: Fire Crystal, 1x Dark Adaman Ingot
Cap: Level 89

Phase 4: High Risk, Zero Reward.

Catching the ores here is the difficult part. The ingots sell for a profit, but it takes a lot of ingots to make up for one critical break. If you're in a linkshell that spams Bahamut V2, Jormy or whatever that new NM in Xarcabard [S] is, you might be able to work a deal out for the ores if they drop. Since the ingots are used in a Gobbie Bag upgrade, their demand has increased exponentially.

Recipe: Fire Crystal, 3x Iron Ore, 1x Molybdenum Ore.
Cap: Level 91

Bridge synth. It sells for about 30k on Odin, but can get as low as 15-20k against a steady ~35k investment. It's not a huge loss compared to some of the other stuff, but probably worth trying to pick up a few skillups on.

Recipe: Fire Crystal, 3x Darksteel Ingot, 1x Steel Ingot, 1x Fiend Blood, 1x Grass Cloth, 1x Yew Lumber
Cap: Level 94

The price on Relic Iron varies greatly. You can NPC this item for ~5.5k gil, which means you need to get the ingredients relatively cheap. You can definitely hold onto a few on the off chance you catch someone starting to upgrade relic GK or relic Katana, but for the most part, expect a slight loss here and expect to be frustrated by lack of supply. Patience is key here. Set up some deals with some dynamis linkshells (or your own) if you see them doing Windurst or Beaucedine. There's also the option to skip this and move onto the next synth if you happen to be 95 or so.

Recipe: Fire Crystal, 2x Relic Iron
Cap: Level 97

Blaize Comment: I still have a ways to go to reach this point, but I would say definitely do not skip this if you can avoid it. Two levels of 10k/synth (relative peace of mind) or two levels of one million gil per synth (do they have internet in mental hospitals?)... despite the potential for profit, and at -4 to -2, it is pure potential and not a guarantee, this seems like the safer bet.

And here is something that will require you to invest HUGE amounts of gil in order to proceed. You will only lose money if you break (pull out the "No Whammy" chants) and the results will generally sell fast.

Recipe: Fire Crystal, 2x Khroma Ore, 1x Wootz Ore, 1x Iron Ore
Cap: Level 99

These sell for a loss, but I think that's primarily due to no one making the ammo consistently for them. If you have an alchemy buddy who is capable of making the cannon shells, see if you can get them to make a few stacks of the shells to put up while you're listing your Culverins to see if anyone is enticed to buy. These are easily the best thing available for RNG zergs and dish out a veritable fuckton of damage in a really short period of time.

Recipe: Fire Crystal, 1x Adaman Ingot, 2x Darksteel Ingot, 1x Brass Ingot, 1x Mahogany Lumber
Cap: Level 100

Hopefully your wallet came out in decent shape after that. You're now part of a select crowd as Smithers that are higher than ~85 are becoming a rare breed.

Blaize Comment: Maybe one day I will be part of that group as well! 84.2 and counting, and no rush to increase it, although reading through this has definitely stoked the fire a bit. Hopefully Wise Owl doesn't work on an appointment basis only... my teeth are clenched and I'm ready to go.

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Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Critical Break: 0-60 Series: Smithing

Posted by Qtipus at 9:20 AM

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 the seventh installment: Smithing.

Smithing was a craft I always found fascinating. Most of your swords and armors come from this craft. Yes the other crafting guilds have their share of armor and weapons too, but usually when you think of someone making a weapon or a piece of armor, an anvil and some red-hot metal getting hit with a hammer are among the first things that spring to mind. This was something that intrigued me in my early FFXI days.

At least until I started losing money.

Unfortunately, this is not a craft you can get to 60 without losing money unless you have far more patience for mining to cap on a daily basis than I do. Realistically, you can farm up NPC-able scrolls and make money at a faster clip than you can from mining. Keep this in mind as I go through this guide.



VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: Desynthesis plays a large part in saving money on some of these synths. I didn't go this route, but if I ever do this again, I'll likely set my mog house up with Moghancement: Desynthesis and spend a couple weeks collecting ingots through the various pieces of beastmen armor in my level range. Most lower level beastmen armor can be picked up for 1k or less with the results often times being 1-2 ingots of various flavors.

Phase 1: The Bait

Smithing starts off innocently enough. You'll be spending your first phase here either mining up your ores (not worth it really) or camping in front of guild salesmen. One thing to note here is the pattern most metals follow. They generally go from Ingot to Sheet to Scales in progression of skill up. Most of the metals in this guide will not get past the Sheet step as turning them into any scales will usually devalue your items pretty quickly.

Pick your favorite guild sales rep in Bastok or San d'Oria (or Whitegate if you like traveling back to the starter cities to rank up) and park yourself in front of them with some Fire Crystals. It shouldn't take long to cap on these. Save results for next synth.

Recipe: Fire Crystal, 3x Copper Ore, 1x Tin Ore
Cap: Level 2

With more Fire Crystals, start eating up your supply of Bronze Ingots you just made.

Recipe: Fire Crystal, 1x Bronze Ingot
Cap: Level 4

If Bronze Ingots can be picked up for 75 gil or less from the Guild (or if you have any left over), buy up a few stacks and head out to Buburimu Penisula and farm up some Giant Femurs. Make these to cap. If you haven't started Bonecrafting here, odds are you'll cap that at 2 as well making these. Turn one in for your first rank up.

Recipe: Fire Crystal, 2x Bronze Ingot, 1x Giant Femur
Cap: Level 8

Use up your supply of Bronze Sheets and cap on these. Check the AH in the starter cities for selling pace of these. It should be close to break even since the price of the mats is so low anyway and no one is usually dumb enough to put things like this up for < 100 gil. They're used in some other armors down the Smithing line, so they do sell, just not very fast.

Recipe: Wind Crystal, 1x Bronze Sheet
Cap: Level 10

Make up some more Bronze Ingots (or buy from Guild if super cheap) and make these to cap. These tend to be a good skill up item for Woodworkers, so you shouldn't lose any money selling the heads on the starter city AH.

Recipe: Wind Crystal, 1x Bronze Ingot
Cap: Level 14

You won't be able to resell these, but given the level gap after this, you'll want to make these to cap. They're cheap buying the ores from the Guild as usual.

Recipe: Fire Crystal, 4x Tin Ore
Cap: Level 15

Phase 2: The Trap

The innocence starts to fade here.


I mention this one as a bit of an alternative. The Iron Ingot synth will add up pretty quick. Generally making this ingot will be a little cheaper and it's used in one of the early Gobbiebag quests. Copper and Zinc ores are relatively cheap to pick up anywhere and you can usually find a few Kopparnickel ores floating around for < 500 gil on the various AHs. Kopparnickel ore is also a relatively common drop off bugbears in the Moval zones. You may opt to use this synth for a couple levels before moving onto Iron.

Recipe: Fire Crystal, 1x Zinc Ore, 2x Copper Ore, 1x Kopparnickel Ore
Cap: Level 20

For the most part, buying your ores from the Guild will be the best way to go. Iron Ores are relatively common mining results, but when you factor in cost of pickaxes and then the fact that there's a cap on how much you can mine per day, it's best just to go farm scrolls to make the money for it. Turn in an Aspis when you hit 18 for your rank up.

Recipe: Fire Crystal, 4x Iron Ore
Cap: Level 20


Use some of your newly created Iron Ingots to make these.

Recipe: Fire Crystal, 1x Iron Ingot
Cap: Level 22

Hopefully Lady Luck is nice to you and you don't have to make too many of these. These are primarily used in the Makibishi synth, which is one of Smithing's rare consumables. Hold onto your results as you'll need them for a mid-30s synth.

Recipe: Wind Crystal, 1x Iron Sheet
Cap: Level 26

Say goodbye to a lot of gil. There are two things that are possibly going to play out here. The first is that you'll lose 20k/stack or so selling your results on the AH. The second is that you manage to sell all your chains by the singles on the AH and come close to breaking even over the course of the next year. Compared to the alternatives in this range, this is the best option available. Again, hopefully Lady Luck prevents you from having to make a ton of these things and actually lets you get one of those 1% HQs that give you multiple chains. Find the cheapest way possible to obtain your ingots here. That usually involves ores from the guild, but you can sometimes find the ingots on the AH for cheaper than the guild. Turn in a Bilbo for your rank up when you hit 28.

Recipe: Earth Crystal, 2x Iron Ingot
Cap: Level 30

Buy Leather Trousers from whatever shop sells them as they're usually around 500g. Make your own cotton thread if your clothcraft is high enough or buy it from the weaver's guild. Use those Iron Scales you made earlier and NPC your results. This is one of the few synths that have a rather high resale value (approaching 6k with max fame). You will still lose a little money on this synth if you get max NPC value from it, but it's far less than what you'd lose trying to sell the scales on the AH.

Also, if you haven't started Leathercraft, you'll likely pick up a few levels of it here if it's below 5. I'd recommend getting it to at least 3 or 4 before skilling up on these though to reduce your chance of loss.

Recipe: Earth Crystal, 2x Iron Scales, 1x Cotton Thread, 1x Leather Trousers
Cap: Level 35

When I skilled up on these, steel ingots were 6k ea. on the AH. This made it so that I had to sell all of my results to get close to break even. Now steel ingots on Odin are around 2.5-3k ea making this synth profitable to NPC even. Take advantage of this as long as you can. Odds are you don't have enough Iron Scales to cap on the previous synth, but if you're in the 33 range, it's perfectly acceptable to move onto this synth. The Ash Lumber portion of it is super cheap anywhere.

Like the previous synth, this has a subcraft you'll need to pick up a few levels in if you haven't started it at all. Woodworking caps at 6 on this. Turn one of these in for your next rank up.

Recipe: Fire Cyrstal, 1x Ash Lumber, 1x Steel Ingot
Cap: Level 38

Farm up your lizard skins (Crawler's Nest) and try to make sure your Leathercraft skill is 8 or higher. It's probably going to be cheaper to buy stacks of iron sheets off the AH at this point than it will be to make them, but if you've got max fame, farm your lizard skins and get the sheets for 2.7k or less, you can NPC the results for about break even.

Recipe: Earth Crystal, 1x Lizard Skin, 1x Iron Sheet
Cap: Level 41

The Cotton Cloth part of this synth can be made relatively cheap if your clothcraft is high enough, otherwise expect to pay about 600-800 ea. for them. This is similar to the previous synth where if you get your Iron Sheets for 2.7-ish, farm your lizard skins and keep your cotton cloth costs down, you can make most of your money back NPCing the results. These sell on the AH rather slow, but they do sell. You might opt to keep a few laying around to sell for 9-10k on the AH to make up the missing gil. Definitely make these to cap cause from here on out, it's kind of painful.

Again, be mindful of the Leathercraft sub of 12. Up to this point, it's entirely possible for you to have picked up 12 levels of Leathercraft just following this Smithing guide.

Recipe: Earth Crystal, 1x Lizard Skin, 1x Iron Sheet, 1x Cotton Cloth
Cap: Level 45

Phase 3: The Drain

A number of these synths end up being profitable, but the materials cost a lot and subsequently makes breaks super costly.

This falls in the same category as the War Pick. The prices on the mythril ingot portion of this synth has fallen quite a bit from the time I skilled up on them. On Odin, their price is currently in the 4-5k range per ingot. With Elm Lumber around 2k or less each, you can NPC the results of this for about break even or even a little profit. Hold onto one of these for your final rank up item as well.

Be mindful of the level 8 Woodworking cap.

Recipe: Fire Crystal, 1x Elm Lumber, 1x Mythril Ingot
Cap: Level 47

Buy up the ores on the AH checking Bastok, San d'Oria and the Jeuno ones. Pick up your Iron Ores from the guild. A five level gap will mean you're probably going to bust a few early on. Hold onto your result for the next synth.

Recipe: Fire Crystal, 1x Darksteel Ore, 3x Iron Ore
Cap: Level 52.

Darksteel Sheets usually don't lose any value over their ingots. Make these to cap. Buy Ingots off the AH if you don't have enough from your previous skillup session as there's not really any financial difference, just time.

Recipe: Fire Crystal, 1x Darksteel Ingot
Cap: Level 55

Loss. Pure and simple. You will lose about 2k/synth on these NPCing the results. You can AH a few of them, but they're still about a 1k loss even that way and they sell very slow. This is primarily a bridge synth to the final skillup items you'll be dealing with. Make or skip these depending on how comfortable you are with a 6 level gap.

Recipe: Earth Crystal, 2x Iron Sheet, 2x Leather Gloves
Cap: Level 57

When SE implemented this and the caps were fleshed out, my first thought was "Hey, that's a kick ass skillup item!" Buying all your mats off the AH (on Odin) will run about 27k ea and the results sell fast and for about break even. Considering what was necessary before in this level range, SE gave you smithers a gift.

Recipe: Fire Crystal, 1x Dweomer Steel Ingot, 1x Steel Ingot, 2x Darksteel Ingot
Cap: Level 61, but 60 for this guide's purposes.

Falls in same boat as Erlking's blade, only with a bit of a more expensive material set. These actually sell decently fast (since most are dual-wielding them...) and for a good profit. You'll spend about 56k or so on mats with the end results selling for 70k+. It will definitely be a decent way to make some of your lost gil back, but be very careful about flooding the AH with these things. There are a lot of dumbasses out there that think if 10+ are up on the AH, they have to drop the price by 50% or more no matter how fast the things are moving.

Recipe: Fire Crystal, 1x Jacaranda Lumber, 1x Dweomer Steel Ingot
Cap: Level 61, but 60 for this guide's purposes.

This is the most common synth used to get to 60. Again, buy/make your Iron Sheets for 2.7k or less, then hit up the Crawler's Nest for your silk thread. If you start making these at 55, expect a ton of breaks since this has a cap of 66. This is far easier on the wallet than my previous two suggestions from a material cost standpoint, but don't let the initial costs fool you. Break enough of these due to the level gap and you'll see similar financial losses.

Recipe: Earth Crystal, 1x Iron Sheet, 1x Silk Thread
Cap: Level 66, but level 60 for this guide's purposes.

Whew! Smithing is 60 now! This has been, by far, the most expensive craft to level in this 0-60 series. This is also one of the more common subcrafts for various bits of armor that's floating around out there. It gets worse though...

Next week: Goldsmithing, the final 0-60 chapter.

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Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Critical Break: July Update - Weapons

Posted by Qtipus at 4:00 PM

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. Today, Q is poking around to see if he can find anything of value in the July Update.

In July's update, SE released a number of new weapons and crafting ingredients for the various crafts. While they typically will release a number of new crafting items in each update, it's not all that often they actually release something useful.

On top of that, it's not all that often they actually release something that's not only useful, but affordable. Most of these require one or two subs that should already be leveled to some degree if you're serious about making money in the crafting market. A lot of them won't be in high demand due to the lack of people that either A) Don't have the job leveled or B) Don't see anything particularly appealing about the weapons. Some of them will be though. Particularly the 1h weapons where the Dancers, Blue Mages et al of the world will be subbing NIN more often than not.

The money and demand portions of these are not why I'm writing about them though. Keep reading to see why I'm hyped about these.


First, a run down of the items themselves:

Crafting Materials

Dweomer Steel Ingot(Smithing 67)
Ruszor Leather(Leather 83ish)
Feyweald Lumber(Woodworking 67)
Oberon's Gold Ingot(Goldsmithing 69)
Oberon's Gold Sheet(Goldsmithing cap unknown, but probably within a couple levels of the ingot)


New Weapons

Fay Crozier (Woodworking 63)
Fay Gendawa (Woodworking 70, Bone ??)
Fay Lance (Woodworking 67, Smithing ??)
Fay Staff (Woodworking 63)
Fane Baselard (Smithing ~64)
Fane Hexagun (Smithing ~67)
Oberon's Sainti (Goldsmithing 64, Woodworking ??, Smithing ??)
Oberon's Rapier (Goldsmithing 69, Smithing ??)
Oberon's Knuckles (Goldsmithing 64, Smithing ~53, Woodworking ??)
Ogre Jambiya (Bonecraft 64, Smithing 52, Goldsmithing ~30)
Ogre Sickle (Bonecraft ~67, Smthing ~52, Woodworking ??)
Dweomer Knife (Smithing ~64)
Dweomer Scythe (Smithing ~64, Alchemy ??, Woodworking ??)
Dweomer Maul (Smithing ~64)
Erlking's Blade (Smithing 61)
Erlkings's Tabar (Smithing ~66, Woodworking ??)
Erlking's Kheten (Smithing 74, Woodworking ??)
Erlking's Sword (Smithing ~67)
Rindomaru (Smithing ~64, Leathercraft ~52, Woodworking ??)
Tsukomo (Smithing ~70, Goldsmithing ~54)

The pattern I want you to notice here are the level ranges for the crafts involved. For most of these crafts, 60-75ish is a veritable sinkhole of gil. Obviously some can argue anything above 20 for Goldsmithing is a sinkhole, but to that I just say these synths become even more important. At least for the time being. SE adding these in this range gives a player some very solid options for skill up and a little profit along the way.

The other thing to notice here are the sub-crafts on these weapons. It's not all that often that we run into crafts where the sub is nearly the same level as the main. This will generally discourage a lot of people from making these as they're usually too lazy to level their subs to begin with.

Depending on how much gil one wants to sink into that "perfect augment", these things shouldn't drop below the break-even point for at least a couple months. If you're at the latter points in skilling up subcrafts (like I am with Smithing and Goldsmithing), give these items a good look. Odds are, you can make a little gil and finish off your subs at the same time. That's particularly difficult to say for some of these crafts. Smithing obviously got the lion's share when it comes to these new items (and it was sorely needed as this is as close to a "consumable" as smithing will probably ever get).

The last thing to note here is that these weapons do drop from union spoils in campaign. Some may choose to take their chances there instead of buying off the AH. This will also add to the influx of weapons on the AH for sale.

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