150k into Leathercraft, Please Mithrael, Help !!!

[Darknight]

Hi. I am leveling Leathercraft, and right now I have lv 4. I want to know how far can I get if I power level that Guild with 150k (I will farm skins of course). I am planning to do Soleas until 11, then switch to Dhamel Leather until 21, then Ram Leather. How far do you think I can go? Will I be able to get back the money after level up this guild? After level up this guild (60 skill) will powerlevel Clothcraft, then Woodworking.

Note: Mithrael, I've been reading your tips about Lv up Leathercraft and they are really good. I want to know if you can give me some advices before blow up my money.

[Mithrael]

:sweat:

I'm not sure how sound my advice is, I lost qute a lot of money before I figured out how to level crafts properly ><; The best I can do is look back and say how I should have done it at certain stages. I didn't really get it right until I was around lv.40 skill or so.

That said... 150k will get you pretty far if you really hunt your own skins as you say you will... Most likely though, you'll end up buying most of them because skin drop rates can be painfully low (4 stacks of tiger fangs for 12 tiger hides, 3 stacks of coeurl whiskers for 8 coeurl hides). The hardest level range for me was 43-51. Raptor skins are tough to get, expensive, and what you can make doesn't sell well to NPC, Guild, or AH. I took a loss on pretty much every synth in this level range, and I don't see any cheaper way to do it other than to wait weeks for raptor armor to sell at ah.

As far as getting your money back goes, it's a function of your patience. I'm not terribly patient... I generally preferred to take a modest loss to gain skill at a faster rate. If you make your leather, then sell at auction in jeuno, you'll make all of the money back plus some profit, but it will slow down your progress in the guild as you wait for the sales. If you sell everything to an NPC, you'll take minimal losses, usually less than 10% of what you spend, but you have your money back much quicker to reinvest in the next couple levels.

Finally, by the time you're lv. 30 in tanning, I'd recommend getting Clothcraft to lv.8. A decent amount of recipes require some cloth skill, and they often sell really well at AH (moccasins)because the other people won't have bothered to level weaving yet. Cloth is by far the cheapest of the Tanning support crafts (Cloth, Goldsmithing, Alchemy, and Smithing), so leveling it first can open up some recipes you wouldn't have available otherwise.

Basic simple plan though...

4-11 Solea (if you're not concerned about losing money here, you can use a lightning crystal to try and recover one of the 2 sheep leathers and gain skill at the same time. you'll blow up most of the desynths though.)
11-21 Dhalmel leather (Hunt your own skins for this, even if it's slower. The hides sell for more at ah than you get back for selling the leather)
21-(31) Parchment (sell individually in jeuno ah, you can sell 20 of these a day to people doing the bard quest at a higher markup than stacks of 12)
(25)-35 Ram Leather (You can buy skins, but don't pay more than 600 gil per skin. you may want to save all of the leather for the next batch of leveling)
35-43 Waistbelts (these sell extemely well to NPC, and even better to your guild)
43-51 Leather Shield/Himantes (You'll end up breaking down and buying raptor skins. these are a total pain in the neck to get, roughly 1 per hour of hunting for me. Make whichever of these two recipes is easier at the time. Leather shields make more money, but lauan shields are annoying to come by. Don't make your own lizard cesti, you'll HQ too many of them and lose a lot of money.)
51-(61) Tiger Leather (You can hunt these skins to some extent while finding tiger fangs for normal farming. the drop rate isn't horrible, but you may only see 3-4 hides per hour of farming.)


Items that will make you a fair amount of money:

Mages Sandals (HQ Version of lv.29 sandals)
Parchment (Lv.31, HQ is higher yield)
Field Gloves (lv.33) and Boots (lv.40)
Moccasins (needed for WHM AF2, you DO NOT want to HQ these -.- HQ version will never sell, just NPC them ><)
Beak Mantle
All types of leather (they're used in blothcraft, bonecraft, and smithing too)


Oh yeah... one last bit. When you go to sell your stuff to the guild, do as much of it at one time as you can. The price changes daily, so if you dump 3 stacks of leather to an NPC on firesday, then another 2 on earthsday, you'll get less money from the ones on earthsday. This matters more when you get to selling the guild stuff like waistbelts (the price can change by 300 gil per belt), himantes and leather shields.

[Dragonhope]

I'd like to suggest an alternative to what my Elvaan sister has recommended. I think you'll lose less materials this way as well.

You can make Lizard Jerkins after finishing up with Soleas for a while until Dhalmel Leather is easier to make. You can sell the Lizard Jerkins back to the Tanning guild or put a few up on the AH (small profit gained this way) and continue on your way.

Of course, if you're farming for your skins, you'll no longer be power leveling it since skins aren't that easy to get even with Treasure Hunter. As Mithrael said, you'll end up getting more of other materials more then you would the hide/skin. Luckily Dhalmel Hides aren't as bad as Tiger Hides or Coeurl Hides.

I pretty much followed the same path until 43. After that, I found it a bit cheaper to make and break Ram Mantles until 49. There I made a few himantes but I was losing more so I made Moccassins until level 52. I started Tiger leather here as it's a LOT cheaper even WITH the losses then contuing to work with Raptor Skins.

PS: By make and break I mean you make the ram mantle and then use a Lightning Crystal to "break" it. It didn't work often but I still got an occasional extra skill gain that way and on the chances that it did work, I usually got the Wool Thread back.


PS2: If your sig is up to date Mithrael, i'm a little ahead of you. If you don't already know of the area, there's a nice little Coeurl Hunting area in Meriphataud Mountains.


PS3: You don't know how happy I am to see another English speaking Leatherworker near my level!!! ^_^

[Darknight]

Thanks a lot !!!!. Well, I made a mistake last night. I was leveling from 4 to 11 with soleas, and then breaking them with lightning. The only problem was this: Even with 6 stacks of Sheep Leather (farmed dark crystal, farmed skins, bough other items), I could not level up to 11. I did not want to do all that again, farm dark .... then I bough some stacks of Sheep Leather to gain the last level (Spend 30k >.<)

After this, I am at 11, still have 120k. I went to Tarongi to farm hides, but as a Rdm/thf is hard to walk trying to find a Wild Dhamel for kill and they dont drop many skins (3 in 1 hour, Buburimbu either). Switched my sub to Rdm/ranger, but then they dont drop anything. I am thinking in farm money with clusters, then sell clusters to buy hides and continue level up. That way is faster to get hides. I hope i can get those 30k later on. Thanks for all the help.

[Dragonhope]

That's actually a pretty good idea. If you want to save money, it's better to sell off the Soleas that you DO make. If you can, you can try making Vagabond or Fishing gear (I don't remember if it was possible at that level or not) and sell those off for gil.

To tell you the truth, if you're going to power level Leathercrafting to 60, be ready to spend over a million in gil at least. I'm not sure if Mithrael's spent as much as me, but i'm positive that i've spent over a few million gil.

[Dragonhope]

Bleh. Sorry for the double post.

[Darknight]

Ok, still lv 11, I farmed last night to get some money and invest that on level up from lv 11 => 21 (50k this night :spin: ). I was thinking in leave some ram skins ready for lv 21 => 31. I got a choco, went to La theine and farming was incredible. I got 25 ram skins and 5 horns in 1 and half hour . I lost 3-4 Rams because some Japaneses were farming there too .

But now, I think i will be able to level up the first hard levels of each range: lv 11-14 and 21-24. For other ranges: 14=>21 and 24=> 31, I will buy hides and skins for 500 each. Thanks for all the help.

[Darknight]

Hahahahha. Thank you Mithrael. I have now Lv 31 of Leather (1 day only !!!!) and still have 136k. Of course, I had more money, 192k and burned around 60k. Waiting for next moon phase to get more skill. Thank you

[hatey]

What moon phase is best for skill? And is it a very dramatic difference?

[Kalgareth]

New Moon is by far the best moon phase for skill increases. You will fail a bit more but that goes with the territory.

[Foxion]

4-11 Solea (if you're not concerned about losing money here, you can use a lightning crystal to try and recover one of the 2 sheep leathers and gain skill at the same time. you'll blow up most of the desynths though.)
11-21 Dhalmel leather (Hunt your own skins for this, even if it's slower. The hides sell for more at ah than you get back for selling the leather)
21-(31) Parchment (sell individually in jeuno ah, you can sell 20 of these a day to people doing the bard quest at a higher markup than stacks of 12)
(25)-35 Ram Leather (You can buy skins, but don't pay more than 600 gil per skin. you may want to save all of the leather for the next batch of leveling)
35-43 Waistbelts (these sell extemely well to NPC, and even better to your guild)
43-51 Leather Shield/Himantes (You'll end up breaking down and buying raptor skins. these are a total pain in the neck to get, roughly 1 per hour of hunting for me. Make whichever of these two recipes is easier at the time. Leather shields make more money, but lauan shields are annoying to come by. Don't make your own lizard cesti, you'll HQ too many of them and lose a lot of money.)
51-(61) Tiger Leather (You can hunt these skins to some extent while finding tiger fangs for normal farming. the drop rate isn't horrible, but you may only see 3-4 hides per hour of farming.)

what about 1-4 ?

Sheep leather ?

[Dragonhope]

0-4 Sheep Wool. Sheep Leather will cap off at 2.

Personally, i'd wait till Rabbit Mantles cap off for me before working on Soleas. Rabbit hides are a LOT cheaper to get then sheepskins or sheep leathers on Midgard.

[imstimpy]

I was actually just farming sheep, rams, and Mary in Konschat as I leveled up from 0-2. When my inventory started to get full or if I was waiting for a respawn, I crafted my sheepskins into sheepleather. If you farm the sheep alone, your time could have been spent doing other things though as I was only saving about 2k per stack compared to buying the sheepskins at the guild and crafting them myself... I can save about 5k compared to buying stacks of sheep leathers outright at the guild, but I don't know how the time spent farming compares to farming for maximum incoming and the levels I could have gained in the extra time.

From 2-7 I was leveling jobs in Ronfaure (rabbit hides) and Saruta (grass thread) so almost all the materials were farmed in an indirect way. In the end, I had to buy a couple stacks of rabbit hides to finish off my last little bit. I could sometimes buy a stack or three of rabbit hides for considerably less than what they go for in the AH.

I synthed a few soleas around 4 or 5 for decent skillups, but the return on the soleas is considerably less than the return for the rabbit mantles. I, instead, chose to push the rabbit mantles to their cap.

I have a ton of soleas and am nowhere near their cap yet so I'm going to try and desynth them. The loss is signifant enough on the soleas that it may be worth it to desynth, but I have only successfully desynthed them once. If I do 12 desynths on them, all I need to do is get back 4 leathers to have broken even compared to just selling them back to the guild.

[Brennon]

New Moon is by far the best moon phase for skill increases. You will fail a bit more but that goes with the territory.

Hmm, in my experience, New Moons are good for HQ synths, while Full moons are good for skilling up.

ESPECIALLY darksday for HQ's and lightsday for skill ups.

any old lightsday is also good for skillups, though less effective than a lightsday during full moons.