Clothcraft guide to skill up @ minimum cost

[cloudedge]

This is my first time posting, so I hope to contribute to the forum by posting one of the guide that I wrote for my LS forum. I browse through the first 100 post on the forum and have only found 1 guide to clothcrafting. I hope the information in this guide offer some new insight to clothcrafting.

*~* INTRODUCTION *~*

First off, I must thanks Cometnet from allakhazam.com. He is the one who wrote the first clothcrafting guide which I have follow and has allow me to level up this craft. This guide is modelled after his, with slight alteration and more focus on how to get though this craft with as little losses as possible. With this in mind, if you’re already a billionaire and would like to power level through clothcraft, this guide might not have much to offer.

This guide’s intension is to get your clothcrafting skill up with as little capital as possible. I have do clothcrafting since I started the game when it is first release in NA. The idea behind this guide is to gain as many skill lvl without losing gil. As a result my current skill level is only 70. The prices I have put down are prices from Ifrit server. These prices allow me to get skill up at breakeven or profit cost for most lvls.

*~* CLOTHCRAFTING: A NEW BEGINNING*~*

Get a level 1 job and go out to Sarutabaruta and fight lots and lots of bumblebees and accumulate lots and lots of wind crystals, beehive chips, and honey. I have solely level my samurai from level 1 – 5 with bees and have got around 7-8 stacks of wind crystals. And the good thing is these bees deals 1 damage per attack, so even as a poorly equip taru, I rarely have to heal. =D

Sell the beehive chips and honey on AH for gil, they are worth some money.

You should still be able to get crystals from them at level 6 (I know the exp is slow, only like 12 exp per kill, but the purpose here to get your craft up with as little cost as possible, right?)

Now you’re a level 6, and you can journey farther into Sarutabaruta to fight Yagudo! They will drop wind crystals and Yagudo Necklace, so this is the perfect time to start our craft:

Level 1 Grass Thread x 3 = Yagudo Necklace + Wind Crystal
Level 4 Grass Cloth = 3 Grass Thread + Earth Crystal

*Profit: 1 stack of grass cloth sells for 3 – 4k in Ifrit, so if you farm all your crystals and Necklace, you are looking at some pure profit =D

*Note Yagudo will also drop feathers, if you have lots and lots or room, and you plan to level up your craft quickly, then you might want to keep them since you’ll need to use them to get to level 22. Otherwise, they sell for 200-300 a stack. If you have individual ones and you are very cheap and don’t like to drop stuff (like me), then you can sell it to the guild, the guild would pay 10-15 gil for 1 feather.

*Alternative to Anti-farmers: I know there are ppl in the game who absolutely dread farming. (Myself included) Here is a gardening recipe that I have found useful though out my cloth craft career:

Earthern Pot + Veg Seed + Ice Crystal = Saruta Cotton 1-3 or 8-12 Wind Crystals
Porcerline Pot + Veg Seed + Ice Crystal = Saruta Cotton 1-2 or 16-20 Wind Crystals

Sell the saruta cotton for profit. And use the Wind crystal for crafting. You may be tempted to skill up on cotton thread with the cotton u get from gardening after lvl 4. Refrain from doing that as saruta cotton are worth more (5-7k/stack) than cotton thread (6-8k/stack), you will end up better doing a recipe that lose money in the following levels and sell those cotton for profit, then syning these cotton.

*~* YOUR FIRST CHALLENGE & A WHOLE NEW WORLD OF DESYNTHESISING *~*

Now, Cometnet’s guild had suggested us to level off Hachimaki from now on to 11.

Level 11 Hachimaki = Wind crystals + 2 Grass Cloth

*Loss: These hachimaki don’t sell fast (if they sell at all), and they sell from 300-500gil on Ifrit. You can also sell it to NPC for around 255gil (I believe)

*Note: You will soon find that no matter how many Yagudo you killed, you will still run out of Grass Cloths. What I did at this time, is to suggest to my ls to go camp Hoo Mjuu the Torrent =D. I suggest to get your ls to help because you will be competing with many people for that stupid bird and you’ll need your ls help to kill off as many Yagudo as you can. These will net you some nice necklace, and if you have a lower level in your pt, you can get some wind crystals too. More importantly if you do get him and get the Monster Signa…. (Ok, let’s get back to our guide)

Personally that’s what I did, and as a poor mage who has very little ability to farm for gil, this was very painful. You will lose quite some gil levelling off Hachimachi, so here’s an alternative way to make some quick gil off desyn that I will be honestly with you I have not tried at such low levels. Note although the cap lvl is higher than your current level, do not expect to gain skill up from desyn. I have been told that skill up are extremely rare during desynthesis.

Here’s what I think could work with de-synthesising:

Level 5 Headgear + Lightning Crystal = 4-7 Grass thread
Level 8 Cape + Lightning Crystal = 4-7 Grass thread
Level 9 Goblin Armor + Lightning Crystal = 2-8 Cotton thread
Level 9 Antican Robe + Lightning Crystal = 2-8 Cotton thread
Level 10 Antican Robe + Wind Crystal = 1-4 Cotton Cloth

***NOTE: these are de-synthesising recipes!! And like all de-synthesising craft, there are high chances that you will fail. Even when you are a high level, you will fail half of the time. But with risk comes some nice profit:

Headgear and cape are often what other cloth crafter level up with and as a result, they are always dirt cheap in Windust. You can buy them at 100-200gil on Ifrit and some quick math:

Assuming you fail half of the time and you do not get HQ; (which is not likely, because I think once you’ve successfully de-syn something, the chances of a normal yield or a HQ are relatively the same – given you do it on the right day which will be discuss later). You will need 6 Headgear to get a stack of Grass Thread.

Assuming lightning crystal cost 1k/stack

If you get the material at 200gil each:
*6 x 200gil = 1200gil + 500 crystal cost = 1700gil
If you get the material at 150gil each
*6 x 150gil = 900gil + 500 crystal cost = 1400gil
If you get the material at 100gil each
*6 x 100gil = 600gil + 500 crystal cost = 1100gil


Grass thread sells for 1k per stack, so if you keep camping for cheap stuff at AH, you can level to 8 with little or no loss and maybe even some slight profit (with HQ).

Goblin Armor and Antican Robe are the gold in de-synthesising. Prices for them range from 300-1000 gil each depending on the city. You will never be able to get them at the lower range in Windust. So I suggest if you are travelling to other cities, always look at what the prices are at the AH.

Assumptions: I had done some testing with de-synthesising Goblin Armor and I do get HQ almost as often as I get normal yield. A test done on Watersday with 30 Goblin Armor has give me approximately 3.75 cotton thread per Goblin Armor at around level 25’s.

Some quick math, assuming you can get 3 thread/Armor with 2 times failure rate, you will need 8 Goblin armor to make a stack of cotton thread:

I only get them for 500gil and I won’t go higher than that, so:

8 Goblin Armor x 500gil = 4k + 1k crystal cost(12 – since occasionally you’ll fail w/o losing your armor) = 5.5k
Cotton thread sales ranges from 5k – 6.5 k on AH

*Note: If you have some gil to invest on moghancement, you can enhance your chance to have successful desyn by utilizing furniture with lightning attributes. A furniture that I use for desyn moghancement is Tarutaru stool.

*~* DESYNTHESISING AND THE DAY OF THE WEEK*~*

I have been doing de-synthesising for around 7 – 8 months. I do not farm, so de-synthesising has been one of my major incomes. From my experience, de-synthesising on the day weak against the crystal or the same as your crystal you are using has given very good results.

i.e. Using Lightning crystal on Watersday or Lightningsday may have highter chance of success.

Crafting, in general, on the day strong against the crystal is not recommended at these lvls.

i.e. Using Lightning crystal on Earthsday may have higher chance of failure rate

And levelling on Darksday is also not recommended at these lvls, as you tend to get more failure on these days but more skill up. As your crafting level gets higher (above 60) skill ups become rarer, lvling on Darksday or the day strong to the crystal u r using is recommended. We will discuss this in further detail later.



*~*To Be Continue*~*

[cloudedge]

*~* BLESSED IS THE GUIDE’S LOW PRICES *~*

CONGRATULATE! YOU HAVE MADE IT! You have made through one of the toughest time in your clothcrafting career! Now onto some nice profiting linen threads =)

Level 19 Linen Thread = Lightning Crystal + 2 Flax Flower
Level 22 Linen Cloth = Earth Crystal +3 Linen Thread

Linen Thread should be able to get you to your mid teens, while Linen Cloth should be able to get you to your high teens and even to the early 20’s

Flax Flowers sells at the guild for 187gil each when is the cheapest. I have notices that it has been harder and harder to see the price drop to that since many people are buying them. I suggest that when you do see that price, buy as many as u can afford or hold. When I make Linen Thread, I usually buy about 9-12 stacks of them. There are two other places you can get Flax Flowers, one is the airship port in Windurst if Windurst is rank 1 in conquest, the bottom price there is around 200+ gil. Another place you can get Flax Flowers is Selbina’s Clothcraft store. Not a lot of people visit that store and you’ll more likely get cheaper price there.

Some quick math:

Individual:

6 Flax Flower x 187gil = 1122gil + 350 Crystal = 1472/linen cloth
Linen Cloths sells between 2.5k to 3k each so you are almost doubling your profit. Thanks for Gobbie Bag Part I.

Stacks:

2 stack of Flax Flower = 4488gil + 1k Crystal = 5488gil/stack of Linen Thread
5488gil x 3 = 16464 + 300 Crystal = 16764/stack of Linen Cloth
A stack of Linen Cloth goes from 30k to 33k, again you’re talking about doubling your profit =D

*~* RETRUN OF THE YAGUDOS *~*

Profiting levels goes by fast… and before you realize it, you are already in your upper teens maybe even early 20’s and Linen Cloth (22) are not giving you much skill ups anymore. At this point, you might want to do some Yagudo Fletchings:

Wind Crystals + 2 Yagudo Feather = 6 bags of Yagudo Fletchings

This synthesis won’t land you profit since wind crystals are expensive. The Yagudo fletchings sell for about 300gil a stack in Windust and maybe 400gil in Sandoria.

This synthesis should take you to lvl 22.

*~* BATTLE WITH THE ANIMAL GLUE *~*

At this point, you’ll be levelling off Fly Lure till level 26-28.

Level 30 Fly Lure =Earth Crystal + 1 Animal Glue + 1 Bat Fang + 1 Chocobo Feather

This is a cross syn which requires bonecraft (but only lvl 8). I only level my bone craft to lvl 2 when I started this recipe and got to lvl 7 when I was done with it, so you can imagine there was a lot of failures ; ; to avoid this, take your bone craft to at least 6, so you can avoid unnecessary failure.

Also, let me be frank, this is a gil loser. There is another alternative recipe, which require lvl 20 smithing:

Level 29 Kaginawa x33 = Earth Cyrstal + Bronze Ingot + Linen Thread + Manticore Hair.

This can be a profiting syn depending on server, though I am told that the supply of Manticore hair varies between server.


Now back to Fly Lure, they sell for 300-500 gil and they sell really slow in Windust if you sell them at 400gil each. You can sell them at 500 each in Sandoria if not a lot of people flood the market.

The problem is the standard price for Animal Glue on Ifrit is 6000-7500gil/stack, and that makes each glue cost 500gil+. Worst yet it’s not easy to farm for Animal Glue!

Now, there is still hope. Since Animal Glue drop off Goblin Ambusher, there’s almost always some non-crafter selling them and you can often get them singles at 300gil each or less… I can almost get 1-2 at 100gil or 200gil everyday off people who just want to get rid of them. So I suggest that when you’re levelling with Linen, start browsing the AH and accumulate cheap Animal Glue as they are stackable.

If you get all your animal glue at 300gil each (which is what I did), this synthesis should not make you loose too much money and will probably get you some nice skill ups.

In terms of the bat fangs, they sell at 100-200gil each on AH, I think they are a bit cheaper in Sandoria. However at this point I was levelling at Garliage and if you ask nicely your party member usually are nice enough to let you have those fangs =D

If browsing the AH for cheap stuff everyday is too much for you, an alternative way is to level up your alchemy and make your own animal glue. The synthesis is only level 7 and that should be fairly easy to get to.

Level 7 Animal Glue = Fire Crystal + Rabbit Hide + 2 Bone Chip + Distilled Water

Some quick math:

Fire Crystal is 150gil + 20gil Rabbit Hide + 2 x 100gil Bone Chip + 10Gil Water
Animal Glue will still cost you about 400gil each. So unless you farm your Fire Crystal you will have some losses.

At this point other guides has suggest making Fisherman Hose/Tunica for profit. I personally have not done this synthesis because the profit seems lean as price has drop a lot since the start of the game and failure can cause you some big losses. But none the less I’ll include the recipe here:

Level 23 Fisherman Hose =Linen Cloth x2+Cotton Cloth+Cotton Thread
Level 30 Fisherman Tunica = Linen Thread + Linen Cloth + Sheep Leather + Cotton Cloth x 3

As far as I can remember, they each sell for around 6k each, so the profit is slim unless you desyn for your material… which probably land you more profit by selling them as raw material instead of synthesising them into Fisherman gear.

*~*To Be Continue*~*

[cloudedge]

*~* FROM HERE ON, YOUR MEAL TICKET IS SECURED *~*

Congratulation! You’re finally made it to level 28! With all those all those hard work and now you’re rewarded! Now, you’ll level off Shinobitabi, one of the most profiting synthesis you’ll be doing =D

Level 34 Shinobitabi x 33 = Earth Crystal + Saruta Cotton + Grass Thread + 2 x Cotton Cloth

Even if you buy all your material in AH:

Earth Crystal 500gil + 4k Cotton + 1k Grass Thread + 2 x 6k Cotton Cloth = 17.5k

These Shinobitabi sells for around 7k-8k/stack on Ifrit, which mean 3x7k = 21-24k

So if you try minimising your cost, by crafting your own material, you’ll even earn more profit!

*~* WELCOME FLETCHING HELL & START MAKING SOME RNG FRIEND*~*

As always, profiting levels always goes by fast, and you’ve soon reach 32-34. Now it’s time for some bird fletchings. At this point, there really isn’t too many synthesises you can do without goldsmithing to skill up and most will loose you money. So here’s my choice:

Leve 42 Bird Fletchings x 6 = Wind Crystal + 2 Bird Feather

Bird Feather ranges from 50gil-200gil each. They are most expensive in Windust and cheaper in Sandoria and Bastok. I only buy them at 100gil each. At this point, you should browse at people’s bazaar often, because many people will bazaar bird feather for a cheap price =D

These fletchings sells for 300gil in Sandoria (which sells much faster), and 400gil in Windust.

Some quick math:

200gil Crystal + 400gil Bird Feather = 600gil/stack

So you will loose some money here and you’ll have a lot of them stuck in your mog safe too.

An alternative way is to skill up is to do Hemp Gorget:

Level 43 Hemp Gorget = Earth Crystal + 8 Grass Thread.

You can try to minimize cost de-synthesising gear for Grass Thread. Cape, Headgear, Hachimaki will all gives you lots of cheap grass threads.

These Hemp Gorget do not get sold often in AH so you have 2 choice, either sell them to NPC for a lost or de-synthesis them and recycle the material. I have test this and I started out with 22 Grass thread and were about to do 6 synthesis and get .5 skill up out of them. So it’s up to you decide whether it’s worth it or not.

These 2 recipes will get you to level 42 at this time you’ll be receiving another Fletching recipes.

*~* MY MOG SAFE IS FLOODED! AT LEAST THESE FLETCHING MAKES MONEY *~*

Now from 42- 52 you’ll be making Insect Fletching, much to my surprise, these fletchings actually makes money, since Insect wings are dirt cheap compare to bird feather and a stack of Insect Fletchings sells for 800-1.5k in Sandoria =D

Level 52 Insect Fletchings x 6 = Wind Crystal + 2 x insect wings

Now insect wings sells for 50gil–100gil each and 500-800 a stack. You can get them cheaper at Sandoria than Windust because of the cooking guild.

Some quick math:

200gil Wind Crystal + 100gil Insect Fletchings = 300gil

These things sells for 1k each, that’s 2.3 times the profit!! NICE~

*~* OH NO! SUDDENLY INSECT FLECTCHING ARE WORTH NOTHING *~*

And from time to time, server to server.. we'll see sometimes see some unreasonable price drops and so if you happened to be unlucky and is level at the same time as some rich plvl crafters who just don't care about the market... u may find that even the most money making recipes are ruined...

So for this, I have found a little alternative method:

Level 53 Black Tunic = Earth Crystal + Silver Thread + 2 Velvet Cloth + 3 Linen Cloth

This recipe used to be profitable before the seers gear was release as it is the only mage gear in the early lvl. As far as I know now, this syn is only break even or make a slight profit. This tunic sells for about 8-10k now on Ifrit

Here some quick math:

Since you are 48+ you can make your velvet cloth with the cheaper recipes:

Velvet Cloth = Earth Crystal 1 Silk Thread + 2 Cotton Thread.

By this level you should be able to get cheap cotton thread from desyn. and silk thread from cocoon.

Silk Thread = Lightning Crystal + 2 x Crawlers Cocoon

Cocoon sells for 300gil each and Gobbie Armor for 500gil (for cotton thread x 2)

So you Velvelt cloth should cost u:

300(cacoon) x 2 +100(lightning crystal) + 500 (Gobbie Armor) +100(lightning crystal) = 1300 gil

And Linen Cloth cost 1472gil/each (see above for calculation)

Silver Thread, you can get it from the guild for as little as 600gil... so the total cost is:

1300gil x2 + 1472gil x 3 + 600gil = 7616gil

Another practical approach to these lvls are doing silk threads and silk cloth.

Level 51 Silk Thread = Lightning Crystal + Crawler Cocoon x2
Level 53 Silk Cloth = Earth Crystal + Silk Thread x3

Do not sell the silk cloth however tempted you are. You are going to need them… you are going to need A LOT OF THEM.

*~*To Be Continue*~*

[Xodia]

SWeeT..but i do alchemy! make one for that!! w00t

[cloudedge]

*~* THE NEVER ENDING SILK ROAD *~*

You are 53 now. You’re at a respectable level, now is the time which tests your passion for this craft. From here on your synthesis will start to cost more to make and won’t land you much profit. You will still be able to skill up on break even cost. But if you are only interested in profit, this is where you may want to stop.

Level 62 Green Ribbon = Wind Crystal + Silk Cloth

From now on till the end of your clothcraft career you’ll be camping silk thread and cocoon A LOT. I find that for most recipe if you camp silk thread for 700gil each you can break even in most of the case. You can also make silk thread at the same cost if you buy cocoon at 300gil each.

If I remember correctly, these ribbons sell to NPC for aprox. 2100gil with max fame. Some quick math show that this recipe is a slight loss:

Silk thread = 3 x 700 + 200 Wind Crystal = 2300.

From 62-66 I recommend doing Silk headband even though it’s a losing syn. I have risk a 10 lvl jump and did battle bracer right away and lost about 20-40k per lvl

Level 69 Silk Headband = Earth Crystal + Silk Cloth + Carbon Fiber

Carbon Fiber sells for about 10k a stack and these silk headband only sell for 2.4k with max fame. So this is definitely a loss without question. /frown

Level 66-72 Battle Bracer = Earth Crystal + Silk Thread + Saruta Cotton x2 + Velvet Cloth x2

This is a slight profit recipe, the sell back price is 4313gil on this product and the cost is roughly 3.9k so it’s a nice break from all those losses.

Make sure u make all your material, craft/buy ur silk thread and desyn your cotton thread to make your velvet. Grow your own cotton. Camp AH… and buy silk in singles only.

Again other guides have recommended doing field gear to help these losses. Here are their recipes:

Level 60 Field Hose = Earth Crystal + Linen Cloth + Wool Thread + Wool Cloth x 2
Level 69 Field Tunica = Earth Crystal + Linen Cloth + Wool Thread + Wool Cloth x 2 + Sheep Leather + Ram Leather

Caution: As with all gear, these are quite expansive syn. So failure might result in big losses.

*~* THAT’S WHERE I AM NOW, SO HAPPY CLOTH CRAFTING*~*

Yup~ So that’s it for now… I’ll try to update this guide once I get farther ^^

[Pai Pai Master]

A good guide. Make sure if you plan on following this to keep in mind that it will take you a very long time.

Personally I recommend something like this instead of powerleveling. It'll save you a huge amount of money that you can otherwise put towards GP.